USA > Connecticut > Windham County > Danielson > Sketches concerning Danielson, Conn > Part 4
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Benedict of Plainfield; Rev. Elisha Atking of North. Killingly; and Rev. Israel Day of South Killingly .. From the house the ministers proceeded to the church to meet those about to confederate, thirteen in num. bar; and with due ceremonial they were constituted & church society. Here follows the names of these Original or charter members arranged, so far as pour tible, in family couples, with necrologie dates.
James Danielson,. October 23, 1827. Mrs, Sarah L. Danielson, April 24, 1852 -.
Zadock Spalding, August 29, 181.7. Mrs. Hannah Spalding, November 26, 1809. Boaz Stearns, April 20, 1805. Mrs. Abigail Stearns, October, 1832,
Samuel Stearns, March 20, 1806. Mrs. Mary Stearns, February, 6, 1861.
Zadock Hutchins, February 17, 1835. Mrs. Elizabeth Hutchins, April 26, 1820.
Dr. Pequel Hutchins, October 17,, 1841.
Col. Shubael Hutchins, April 14, 1841.
Mrs. Anna Kies. (Date of her death not known.)
Thus organized the society took for its title "The Now Church of Christ in the West Society," a designs- tion that does not imply that they regarded the society. as being of very close descent from those preceding it, and their practical repudiation of any connection with the Middle Society is also of some significance. So. faras it was any reorganization of a former society, it merely concerned the same parisb, but both church building and location were diferent; morecrer the
51;
OFTHE OLD CHURCH.
rehabilitating the society was mainly the work of: zpother generation. It is not known that any of the; original thirteen members of the new society had ever.a belonged to Mr. Burroughs' congregation, thoughtwe .. generations were represented. Their ages are said to . bave ranged from 25 to 55 years. Two of the women? -Abigail Stearns and Anna Kies-were baptized: before signing the covenant, hence it is inferred that . she others had been members of the churches at Brook- !yn and South Killingly.
James Danielson was born in 1761 and in 1788 he .: was united in marriage with Sarah Lord of Abington, Conn., by whom he had eleven children, (ante p. 34.); He inherited the estate and house of Col. William Danielson, and in 1806 he attained the rank of general of the state militia, hence he has commonly been re -. membered as Gen. James Danielson. Besides being: identified with the first cotton-mill that was.erected. in Killingly, he often represented the town in the state! legislature.
Zadeck and Hannah Spalding lived at the "old, redi house" on the Plainfield road and were quiet farm, people. They had eight children, five. boys named Willard, Elisha, James, Henry and Edward, and three girls, Hannah, Olive and Mary. None of the children ever married since all were swept away by+ tuberculosis early in life. Mr. Spalding saw some; service in the Revolutionary war.
Boaz and Abigail Stearns resided on the road not far. north of the church. Boaz and Samuel Stearns were half brothers, grandsons of the Boaz Stearns who settled in Killingly early in the second quarter of the eighteenth century .. Samuel lived on the hill. to the
east of the church; his wife, Mary, outlived all of the cthor thirteen members of the society and was the. uply one of them who saw and entered the present church edifice .. Boaz Stearns was the first of the little, band.to pass away; his wife Abigail is said to have. come to her death by an accident while alone in the. house where she lived.
Zadock and Elizabeth Hutchins lived in a location, clint in after years was opposite Hutchins street whon. it became, first a Jane, and finally a street in faot. He was a maker of household furniture and a pon -. sioner of the war of the Revolution. Much of the furniture of those times was made per order by rosi- deat mechanics called cabinet-makers in small shope. on their premises. After the death of his wife be. gent to reside with a relative in Thom pron.
Pennel and Shubsel Hutchins were brothers. Of the first named, much has already been said. Ho was a noted physician and influential man of his time .. He was known to all in that region, made his profes- sional calls in a chaise, and wore the colonial style of dress until within a few years prior to his death. Col. Shabael. Hutchins lived south on the Plaingold road and across Fall brook. He also saw service in the war of the Revolution, and at times represented the town in the legislature .. At home he attended to his farm and worked at blacksmithing, using charcoal on the forge as was customary in those times. The wives of Ponuel and Sbubael Hutebins were not able to unite with the society at the time that their hus- bands did, but they did so the next year. Mary, the wife of Penuel, died March 15, 1825; and Avis, wife of Shubsel, died September 25, 1860.
THE TIME OF THE OLD OHUSCH
Concerning Mrs. Anna Kies little of anything io known other than what has been mentioned. The family name that she bore would imply that she was the wife of a descendant of Ebeneser McKee, an early ' aettler of Killingly who located on the Plainfield road got far south of what is remembered as the Lysander Warren place. McKee's estate was about a mile square and included Quinebaug pond. Anna Koe of/ Kies and husband, if the latter was still living, may have emigrated from Killingly.
The first recorded church meeting after the society had been formed was for the purpose of procuring a communion table, held October 10, 1801, at the house of Zadock Spalding. Miss Larned wrote concerning conditions at that time: "General !)anielson occupied. the site and privileges which a hundred years before had been taken up by his namesake. Dr. Hutchins, Boaz Stearns, Robert Howe and one or two other families were living in the vicinity of the meeting house. Blacksmithing was carried on by Mr. Howe. Captain Silas Hutchins' tavern was a place of popular, resort for merry- makers. The church made but slow advance for several years."
With considerable difficulty and amidst discour- agements, the society proposed to raise a fund of $3,000, the interest to be devoted to preaching the gospel, and this, it was later said, "served as a sort of band to bind the society together." At different times three calls were tendered to ministere to preach for the society but without success; then Gordon Johnson of Farmington, Conn., came and was ordained Decom- ber 12, 1804. The society was still fesble in number, since as late as when Priest Whitmore came only Ave;
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more names had been added to the list -of members. But it does not follow from this that . Rev. Johnson's congregation.was a small one. There were the young people of the community to take into account; adult residents of the parish who were still non-members; sey chance visitors, and in pleasant weather persons from neighboring parishes who rode to the church in the West society for a change in bearing pastore.
In October, 1805, the Westfield Ecclesiastical Society was incorporated. Among other duties the society Sad the financial side of maintaining the church to look after. As early as 1807 the parish was called Westfield. Rev. Gordon Johnson was dismissed Jan- gary 81, 1809. He remained in the neighborhood cultivating a small farm until his death at the age of 57 yeare, April 25, 1823.
:On November 11, 1809, Ebenezer Young opened law office in Westfield. He may have been induenced in his choice of a location by the building of a spin- ning-mill that year on a lower reach of the Five Mile
. In the earlier part of the first decade of the present con- tury two booklets were published relative to the Congregational Church and Society. The first was a record of the Centennial Celebration of the present society held in September, 1901, com- talning addresses and valuable historical papers; published by the Parish House Association, 1908. The other booklet was a Manual of the church issued in 1005. Both were edited by Bor. 8: Cherberne Mathews, pastor of the church from 1898 until 1905. In the Centennial booklet Rev. Gordon Johnson wes spoken of on the first minister of the old church and Rev. Whitmore as the second. But Rev. Mathews held the view that the society itself had been continuous through Fisk, Barker, and Burroughs, and bence made Johnson the fourth minister. What Priest Whitmore would have thought of being placed as the sixth minister of the Westfeld Church Society may be a question.
``Mr. Mathews removed to Roxbury, Mass., and died May 4, 1918
THE TIKE OF THE OLD; CHURCH . . 85 ..
river about a mile southwest from the church. .. He .. also built a residence, both that and the law office " being located a short distance south of the church. . Mr. Young was born on a farm in the vicinity now called "Grandview" on Orient Heights, his grand- father, Elijah Young, probably being first to establish résidence there. About 1816 Ebenezer Young be- came identified with a cotton-mill at East Killingly. :
Ib 1812 Rev. Roswell Whitmore, remembered as "Priest" Whitmore, located in Westfield as a candi -. date for minister of the church there. He came of a. Killingly family that had emigrated to Ashford and was born in the last named township April 10, 1787. Having preached for the society for some time he was ordained and installed as pastor of the church, Jan- gary 18, 1813. And so began in the case of Rev. Whitmore what was to be a long pastorate. Hitherto there had been no deacons serving the church, but on March 14, 1813 Gen. James Danielson snd Col. Shu- biol Hutchins were appointed deacons. It appears that & considerable element of populatier ir the parish bad not united with the church prior to Mr. Whitmore's time; but eight became members in 1812, twenty-sevon in 1813 and fourteen in 1814; total for the three years mentioned 48. There was as yet little at Danielson'a Factory to furnish members, the majority being thos who lived on farms at that time, and largely married women in comparison with unmarried ones.
The second war with Great Britain was not very popular in New England which had just entered its industrial stago. During the war, militia trainings were rife at Westfield, the troops in that part of the state being subject to calls for the defense, of the
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coast as when Stonington was attacked by, a British. feet. Shubael Hutchins, born in 1759, had served an a lad in the Revolution and in the war of 1812-15 he- again saw military service as an officer of a regiment. In'. Westfield, Capt. Evan Malbone kept the tavern; Swot. Silas Hutchins presided over an assembly room, or dance hall; and Capt. Solomon Sikes of the militia, mas another popular man of the vicinage whom the war brought to notice. Balls were given in connection . with militia doings, and liquors probably flowed rather , freely, for in those days the temperance movements of later times had scarcely been thought of. At the time under discussion the place had begun to assume the aspect of a stage road country village.
` For five years following the signing of peace in 1816 little is recorded concerning Weetfield. In the inter- kal to 1820 only six persons united with the church .. four women and two men, one of the latter being Capt. Elisha Danielson in 1817. Probably all through. his ministry, Priest Whitmore occasionally exchanged pulpits with ministers of the neighboring parishes .. In 1820 fifty-four more persons united with the now growing membership of the Westfield Church. As yet the'Danielson factory village was not extensive enough to furnish but a few only of these new mem- bers; we, recognize as being of that locality the names of George Danielson and wife, Hezekiah L. Danielson, Comfort Tiffany, and William Reed and wife. Mr.A Reed was superintendent of the factory. Among the now socessionsthere was a considerable contingent from the farms between the rivers and from the part of the parish adjacent to Killingly Center. Probably the majority were of those who had been reaching
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IN THE TIME OF THE' OLD! CHURCH.
adult age within what was then recent years. Among: Conse belonging to Westfield may be mentioned Isaac T .. and Joanna Hutchins, David, Fisher, also three grown up children of a Bacon family who had moved over to: Westfield from South Killngly.
In 1820 David Bacon established a cabinet shop, lp Westfield as a maker of household furniture. He, appears to have been a sort of successor to Zadock- Hutchins who had carried on the same business there. before Mr. Bacon became a resident of the village. Bacon's shop was located a short distance north of the church. At intervale new houses began to be added to the few previously scattered along the street if in; the twenties it could be called a street, and the Bacon, family occupied one of them. Mr- Bacon and wife; retained their membership in the South Killingly church until the year 1832
As to how early the Westfield school district pos- sessed a school house we have no information. But in 1824 Isaac T. Hutchins taught s private school in Westfield and also tangbt in those years in some of the little red school houses of the country districts. By that time quite a variety of distinctive American school books had been published, whatever their merits or demerits may have been; there was an early form of Webster's Elementary Sperling Book, ârat published in 1783, and which was the germ from whence sprang the author's Unabridged Dictionary; ¿ geography by Jedidiah Morse in which countries, states, etc., were described in an ordinary book of several hundred pages rather than mapped; some readers by Caleb Bingham, also the English Reader and a Speller by Lindley Murray; arithmetics by
SKETCHES 00
Colburn and Nathan Daboll, and other efforts in the line of early school book production. Many of those. books were leather bound, the binding being strongly and substantially done; for the book-binders of those days evidently knew their trade.
As before stated (p. 34) Charles L. Tiffany when at. The age of twelve, was one of Mr. Hutchins' pupils aa the time when keeping his Westfield private school. Young Tiffany was then living on the Brooklyn side of the river, his father and uncle having built one of the small cotton-mille of that period, also a residence there. 'Now if he did not stay in Westfield through the week, he probably rode to school and back .:
"About the year 1826 Thomas Backus moved over from Brooklyn and established himself in Westfield as a lawyer. His house and law ofice were located on the east side of the way next north of the residence. of I. T. Hutchins, and the latter person lived at the corner of what is now Stearns and Main streets, the Westfield school house and yard occupying the other corner south. There probably had been no lawyer residing in the village since Ebenezer Young moved to East Killingly and built a residence there, though ho atill retained his Westfield property.
"Gen. James Danielson died in 1827 and Col. Shubaol Hutchins thereupon resigned his office of deacon in the church, held since 1813 conjointly with Gon. Dan- deleon, so that two new deacons might be appointed at the same time. The new deacons accordingly chosen were Adam B. Danielaon who lived on ore of the farms between the rivera, and Warren Stearns who resided on the heights about a half mile east of the church. Both had been born in 1796.
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IN THE TIME OF THE OLD. G.HURC.H
Joha Sparks, who resided where Zadock Hutchine had lived before, joined the church in 1828 so that he was a resident of Westfield as early as the late twen- tles. Ho was a hard-working blacksmith and had a large family to support. In a moment of depression., he bought a lottery ticket by which he unexpectedly won a thousand dollars. This is said to have been in 1880. Sparks invested the money in pieces of property- adjacent to Westfield, among others the old Elijah Young place which be or a successor named Mount. Pleasant, but which is now called Grandview. Hero hø established sap works to manufacture an ascid used: in dying cloth. He put a man named; Jobb Tabor in. charge there, the product of the works being eold in Providence. Another venture was to lay out a small cemetery to the west of his blacksmith shop with & lane leading to it by the north side of the shop. In course of time the lane was extended west so as to: intersect a roadway that became Mechanic street. Later along in the century the lane developed into ? what is now Hutchins street. Sparks never retained long any real estate property that he ever owned.
. Between the years 1820 and 1832 the membership of the Westfield church had been increasing apace, by far offsetting the few desthe and removals for the samo series of years. The families living on the farms between the rivers continued to be represented and others were moving into the parish and its little factory villages from otherplaces, particularly from South Killingly and uniting with the church by letter. Altogether the accessions for those years smounted to seventy-five in number. Only a few of those listed . became identified with later local history.
Little has been recorded concerning the personality of Priest Whitmore during the years gone over in the. preceding.pages, the most of. what has been written on that topic rather pertaining to the last years of his ministry over the Westfield church. There are times; when the spirit of revivalism influences communities do, an unusual degree, in one place or in another. Io 1832 when there was only one denomination in the community, the Westfield Congregaticral Church under Priest Whitmore's ministry, received for what. at that time and even later, was an extraordinary; accession of new members to the number of 181. It is evident that the whole parish was influenced and that. the little Danielson and Tiffany factory villages were Bow much more affected where the families of the mill operatives were concerned than ever before.
Noting only the names of men either already meny tioned or apt to be mentioned hereafter in other connections, we find for Westfield village those of William C. and. Aber F. Bacon, Thomas Backus, Philip Tanner, Orville M. Capron, Lyman Lamb,: Samuel Reynolds, and James H. Spalding among. these.who united with the church that year. The accessions gained from the two mill villages led to the building about 1883 of a brick walled chapel for the convenience of the factory help, both men and women, in which five o'clock services were held on Sabbath afternoons by Priest Whitmore and others. It was largely built by contributions and stord about where a row of factory tenement houser forming Sherman street now intersects Cottage street. Someconference meetings of the church society were later held in the building so it came to be called the conference house,
IF THE MIKE OF THE OLD CHURCH
The higher social functions of the community and parish all centered about the church. As yet there was no railroad and no depot village, the way between Westfield and the factories being across fields which tere ,private property. For teams the way to the factory village, which included a grist-mill and possi- bly a saw-mill, was by way of what is now a part of Broad street and Cottage street, unless the fields could. be crossed at times by a cart-path with bars to take down. Early in 1835 the young people of the three villages and surrounding country organized what they called the Psallonian Society, the object of which was singing, practise in sacred music and social enter- tainment. The society drew up a constitution which contained eleven articles. Their first meeting was hold February 27, 1835, a set of officers being chosen and thereafter they met at the church, conference house, school houses and private residerces every two weeks. In the long run over fitty members, some of them honorary, were errolled. 11( list comprises many well-remembrred nanes, then the young men and women of their day and generation. By the summer of 1839 the society had dwindled out of ex- istence, but. a number of the members who were still interested in church singing net November 6th of that year and re. organized as the Westfield choir.
In just what year the stage coach began passing back and forth between Worcester and Norwich, we have never seen any statement nor even mention of the decade of the last century unmistakably indicated. At first the stages probably left terminals only two of three times each week, but in the thirties the stages were running both ways daily. People spoke of the
old country road that passed through Westfield the Plainfield road because southward it ran 'in the direction of that village. Most all of the houses of Westfield that were already there when the Civil began had been built by the year 1885. When ro dents saw that the place was becoming somewhat extended along both sides of the stage road they began speaking of it as Westfield Street.
There are two dates pertaining to Westfield, neither of which have we ever seen designated. These were the years when David Fieber and I. T. Hutchins each began keeping grocery stores in the village and sold rum as freely as they did molasses. Common custom sanctioned the sale of liquors in groceries in those times and what was thus legalized was zernmed to bo. right. David Fisher was a resident as early as 1820, and presumably began store keeping acmetime during that decade and earlier than Mr. Hutchins.
Back in the thirties of last century before machinery had supplanted hand processes of manufacturing many things, the New England stage coach villages · had residents following different mechanical voca- tions as well as different callings in other walks of life. In regard to Westfield in that decade, either through. the whole of it or merely for a few years only during its continuance, there were present in the place David Bacon, cabinet shop; Jogaph Pickering, wagon repairer; John Spress, blacksmith; Horace Burroughs, shoemaker; Israel Simmons, tailor; David Fisher and Isaac T. Hutchins, grocery stores; Penuel Hutchins, physician; William C. Bicon, temperance tavern; Thomas Backus, lawyer; Stowell L. Weld, easter ic. school; George W. Spalding, teacher in the district
IT THE TIKT OF THE OLD CHURCH
Chools, and not least, Roswell Whitmore, minister. israel Simmons moved down from East Killingly in 1887 and took quarters in a part of the Bacon shop. There were no ready made clothing stores in those days, hence the vocation of the tailor was a busy one. In 1888 Stowell L. Weld, a graduate of Brown Uni- Versity, opened a high or academic school in Westfield. Prof. Wald married a daughter of Priest Whitmore and after two years he sought larger and more lucra- tive fields in his vocation elsewhere. The school was continued a while by Joseph S. Winsor of Chepachet, R. I., as the Killingly Institute. The building stocd on the east side of the street some distance north of the church, and was evidently an old one fitted up for the school. The question might be raised, whether it was not the dance hall used by Silas Hutchins (p. 56) during the militia days of the war of 18121: Karly in the next decade Ebenezer Young bought the building and remodeled it into a dwelling house.
From the Aunt Judith sketches before mentioned we have some memories of the late afternoon Sunday meetings held at the Conference house which was the factory village adjunct of the Westfeld church. The sketch takes one back to the early forties.
"Aunt Judith remembers many five o'clock meetings there in her childhood. At these meetings there was much praise, prayer and testimony from such men as the Danielsons, Capt. Elisha, Capt. Hezekiah, Deacon Adam and his brother, Jacob, who did much good in his own way in outside work. Thes there was Capt. Nathan Fuller, Deacon Stearns, Israel Sim- mons, John Chollar, and Isaac T. Hutchins who could always be relied on as helpers. Priest Whitmore led the meeting from the little pine desk on the low platform. The womeni
DANIALION
listened in silence. The board seats had the luxury of backs bat no cushions or footstools are remembered."
.""Young men," when they considered themselves. .. fully dedged, wore their first silk hats to 'the Conference house get used to them' before undergoing the ordeal of appearing in them at church. It is believed that singing schools and choir meetings* were held there and one lady tells us that she attended a select schoolt there in her girlhood. In fact, it was a parish bouse, pure and simple."
The years 1841 and 1842 witnessed another period of revivalism in the West Killingly and surrounding country of that day. While many joined a Methodist aociety recently organized at the new depot village, the membership of the Westfeld church was increas- ed to the extent of 140 which was a remarkable gain iu numbers. After a pastorate of thirty years, Priest Whitmore was dismissed March 2, 1843. In 1841 be stated that down to that year he had "administered the seal of baptism to 920, had married 250 couples, attended 750 funerals, and had received to the church bout 300 members." He afterwards preached in several places in eastern Connecticut, and died in Westfield village April 10, 1861, just on the verge of the outbreak of the Civil war.
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