USA > Connecticut > Tercentenary pamphlet series, v. 3 The Beginnings of Roman Catholicism in Connecticut > Part 37
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3 See above, p. IO.
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Rowland, minister at Windsor, Connecticut, from 1776 to 1794, a man of power and eloquence and of wide influ- ence. He drew a close parallel between Rehoboam and George III, and Judge Daggett of New Haven who heard the sermon said, "It produced a very great excitement." The stories were so familiar to the Bible-reading congre- gations of those days that there was no missing their application.
V
IN western Connecticut a minister of exceptional ability and influence was Cotton Mather Smith of Sharon. He also had educated his people in the principles of government and was one of those who, in early days, foresaw inde- pendence. Like many another pastor, he gave the latest news from his pulpit and, after announcing the battle of Lexington, helped in assembling about one hundred men on the green after church, ready for immediate march. Not only did he write and publish sermons, addresses, and articles, but he also wrote odes of liberty for his con- gregation to sing. One attributed to him is a good ex- ample of his fiery patriotism:
Let tyrants shake their iron rod, And slavery clank her galling chains, We fear them not, we trust in God, New England's God forever reigns.
Smith served as chaplain in the army and formed a lasting friendship with Gen. Philip Schuyler, but perhaps his greatest service was in steadying and encouraging his people in the dark days of 1777. Near the New York bor- der, these western towns found it easy to be fearful. Smith kept up their faith and hope and persuaded the men to join the army against Burgoyne. Sedgwick, in his history of Sharon, recounted that Smith preached a spe-
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cial sermon to raise the spirits of those who so anxiously awaited news of Burgoyne's army and that, before it was finished, a messenger arrived, bringing news of the sur- render.
Another clerical poet was Nathaniel Niles, who lived in Norwich. In 1775 he wrote a Sapphic ode entitled The American hero, which was sung by a full choir. Called "the war song of the Revolution," it seems more patriotic than poetic as its last stanzas attest:
Fame and dear freedom lure me on to battle, While a fell despot, grimmer than a death's head, Stings me with serpents, fiercer than Medusa's To the encounter.
Life, for my country and the cause of freedom, Is but a trifle for a worm to part with;
And if preserved in so great a contest, Life is redoubled.
Ebenezer Baldwin of Danbury and Samuel Sherwood of Norfield (now Weston), like Smith, were of special serv- ice in arousing western Connecticut. Baldwin was a tu- tor at Yale College until 1770 and minister at Danbury from 1770 to 1776. He had a library large for those days, started a town library, and taught numbers of boys, among them Chancellor Kent, who spoke of him as "a great and excellent man," whose preaching was "simple, earnest, and forcible, with the most commanding and graceful dignity of manner." Several of his sermons and addresses were published, among them one to the free- men printed in September, 1774, as an appendix to Sher- wood's Fast Day sermon, delivered in August. These were both intended especially to enlighten and arouse the country people who saw few newspapers, who were not fully aware of the issues, and were likely to be influenced by the strong Tory sentiment in that section. They set
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forth the principles of good government, refuted the argu- ments of the Tories, explained clearly the grievances of the colonies, encouraged subscriptions for the help of Boston, and showed the necessity of the union of the colonies.
In November, 1775, Baldwin preached at Danbury a sermon in which the war was declared just and not to be compromised without loss of civil and religious liberty. In this sermon he envisaged an America grown in two hundred years to one hundred and ninety-two millions,4 a great and mighty empire founded on principles of liberty and freedom such as the world had never seen. "This Struggle," he said, "will cause the Principles of Liberty to be better examined than in the Foundation of any other Empire." In March, 1775, he preached elo- quently to a company of one hundred men who marched to the meeting house to hear him, and in 1776 he was most zealous in encouraging the townsmen to enlist for the defense of New York. He became chaplain to a regi- ment made up largely of his own people and died a few months later from an illness contracted in the army. Sherwood, his friend, continued his labors to such good effect that it became too dangerous for him to sleep in his own home, and he was given a guard of Continental soldiers to protect him from the Tories and British.
Another western Connecticut minister of wide fame was Judah Champion of Litchfield, renowned for his ser- mons and his infectious zeal. In 1770 he published two discourses on colonial history because he realized the lack of such histories, and because he believed the younger generation all too unfamiliar with the distresses suffered by their ancestors in the cause of freedom. Chosen to
4 Estimating a population of three millions doubling three times in each century.
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deliver the annual election sermon in May, 1776, he dis- coursed eloquently on "Christian and civil liberty and freedom." Calming fears, recruiting soldiers and solicit- ing money, serving as chaplain, giving war news from his pulpit, even letting the women spin on Sunday for the cause, his influence was deep and wide.
VI
Two ministers of special ability and eminence, Ezra Stiles and Timothy Dwight, also supported the colonial cause. Stiles's letters, journals, diaries, and collections of newspapers furnish rare source material. He was the friend of many of the clergy mentioned, of Washington and Franklin, and of other statesmen and soldiers. He had long been interested in religious freedom, in govern- ment, and in the future of the colonies, and early prophe- sied their independence. From 1778 to 1795 he was presi- dent of Yale. His election sermon of 1783, which ran to a second edition in 1785, was also published in London. Chancellor Kent said of him:
A more constant and devoted friend to the revolution and independence of the country never existed. He had anticipated it as early as 1760 and his whole soul was enlisted in every measure which led on gradually to the formation and establish- ment of the American Union.
Shortly after Lexington, Timothy Dwight, tutor in Yale College and later Stiles's successor in its presidency, had urged the necessity of a declaration of independence when his friends, he said, even those who were true Whigs, gave his arguments a contemptuous and hostile recep- tion. Dwight was chaplain to General Parsons's Connecti- cut Continental Brigade in 1777. His sermon, shortly after Burgoyne's surrender, on the text, "I will remove
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far off from you the northern army," is said to have aroused great excitement in the camp.
Among the humbler ministers whose work must have had decided influence on the country people among whom they worked was Dan Foster of Poquonock in the town of Windsor. In 1774 he published a series of six sermons on civil government, not, he said, for those who knew all about it, but for the people "to whose natural and justly acquired rights and privileges" he was "invio- lably attached." Radical sermons these were, full of revolutionary philosophy. "What in the name of common sense is a king made for," he cried, unless for the good of the people from whom all civil power originates?
VII
IT would not be giving a true picture of the Connecticut ministers to paint them all as equally fervid and out- spoken. There had been before and was between 1765 and 1775 much controversy over the authority of the conso- ciation, so much so that disgusted laymen entered the Anglican fold because of it. There was bitter feeling as well over taxation for the support of church and clergy- a tax vigorously protested by the Anglicans, Baptists, and Separates. Many of the clergy allied themselves with political factions and were accused of trying to control their towns or even the colony itself. These circumstances together with theological differences had their weight in determining the position of the ministers, especially be- fore 1774.
The Anglican clergy were naturally pro-British. The Baptists and Separates were interested primarily, at least in early days, in religious liberty and in the applica- tion of Revolutionary argument to their own situation. On the whole it seems that the New Light ministers were
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more inclined to immediate and open resistance. They helped, apparently, in the defeat of Governor Fitch5 who was supported by the faction known as the Old Lights or Arminians and, as a result, were accused of stirring up the "mobility" for the express purpose of controlling elections. But by 1774, perhaps in some cases owing to the increasing pressure of their parishioners, the great majority of the Congregational or Presbyterian ministers were heartily on the side of the colonial resistance.
· A few, however, were reluctant to go so far and so rapidly. John Smalley of New Britain, a well-known teacher of theology, did not hesitate to express in public, as in private, his dislike of the inflammatory press and of fighting against the king. In 1775 he read the proclama- tion for the special Fast Day, but is said to have told his people that they were under no obligation to keep it, since congress had no power over them. As a result he won the disapproval of his friends, fellow ministers, and townsmen, and was questioned several times by the town meeting. Apparently his attitude did not go beyond non- resistance, for the difficulty proved temporary and he remained the beloved minister of the parish for over thirty years longer. Jonathan Murdock of Greenwich, however, was accused of friendship with the British, of trading with them, and of neglecting to pray for the success of the colonial arms, "to the great Grievance of the people." For these and other reasons he was finally dismissed in 1785. Yet he was soon installed as minister in Bozrah where he served for over a quarter of a cen- tury. Others were lukewarm, if not openly opposed to any resistance to British authority. Among such were Benja-
s Thomas Fitch's failure to secure reelection in 1766 was due, in part, to his complacent attitude toward the Stamp Act. His successor was William Pitkin of Hartford.
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min Woodbridge, minister from 1742 to 1785 in the parish of Amity, now called Woodbridge in his honor, and Nehe- miah Strong, whose political views perhaps had some effect in causing his resignation of his professorship in Yale College in 1781.
As among the Standing Order there were some who believed in submission to royal authority, so there were Anglicans who, although loyal to Great Britain, yet took no open measures against the Revolutionary cause. Such were John Beach® of Redding and Samuel Andrews of Wallingford. Beach signed an agreement in 1775 not to take up arms for the British, although he continued to pray for the king, nor would he desist in spite of efforts to force him. Since the Tories were strong in Redding and its vicinity, and Beach was a man of strength and influ- ence, it was fortunate for the Americans that he remained comparatively inactive.
An amusing tale is told of Samuel Andrews. He was a Yale graduate, a convert to the Church of England, rec- tor of St. Paul's, and a warm friend of the Congregational minister, James Dana. In 1775 he was invited with other clergymen to a town dinner in honor of Washington. The dinner had begun with a patriotic but prolonged prayer. At its close, Andrews, whose pro-British sentiments were known, was asked to give thanks. He repeated the follow- ing verse from the Bible:
Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter anything before God: for God is in Heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore, let thy words be few.
Whereupon he sat down. On a general Fast Day he preached from the text, "I hate, I despise your feast
6 See Epaphroditus Peck, The Loyalists of Connecticut (no. XXXI of this series), pp. 16-17.
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days," and on another such occasion closed his church and rode his horse through the streets. Although under bonds and restricted in his movements, he was not harmed by the patriots.
Perhaps never before nor since have long prayers been so eagerly awaited as some of those during these years. Certain ministers had a gift of vivid speech which must have rejoiced their hearers. When Col. Benjamin Tall- madge and a regiment of cavalry visited his church one morning while the arrival of Cornwallis on the American coast was hourly expected, Judah Champion of Litch- field prayed:
Oh Lord, we view with terror and dismay, the approach of the enemies of thy holy religion; wilt thou send storm and tempest, and scatter them to the uttermost parts of the earth; but, per- adventure, should any escape thy vengeance, collect them to- gether again, Oh Lord, as in the hollow of thy hand, and let thy lightnings play upon them.
Nathaniel Roberts of Torrington must have startled his congregation when he prayed, "Great God, we pray thee remove that Lord North from office, by death or otherwise." The prayers of Benjamin Pomeroy of Hebron and Andrew Lee of Hanover were noted and sometimes criticized for their political flavor. Benjamin Lord of Norwich was accustomed to use his prayer as a kind of weekly newspaper, sometimes praying the hourglass over.
VIII
PERHAPS one of the most significant features of the teach- ings of some of the clergy during these years was their radical democracy. Some, probably the majority, were conservative in social and economic questions, but some went far in applying the Revolutionary doctrines to con- ditions at home. They urged free tenure of land, no large
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landed estates, equable distribution of property, perfect religious liberty, and an America the refuge of all dis- tressed people the world over, while some, indeed a sur- prisingly large number, went so far as to advocate the abolition of slavery, and a few succeeded in influencing their parishioners and others to free their slaves.
Even as early as 1752 in an election sermon, Ashbel Woodbridge of Glastonbury had spoken against the slave trade, but during the struggle with England the incon- sistency of the whole institution with the theories of natural right was clearly recognized and asserted in no uncertain tones. Levi Hart of Griswold who was widely known in New England, a friend of many prominent men of the time, preached a sermon in September, 1774, to the freemen of Farmington, his native town, in which he gave a vivid picture of the trade. "A flagrant violation of the law of nature, of the natural rights of mankind," he called it, and declared that it was more than time it was effectually prohibited.
In the same year Ebenezer Baldwin of Danbury preached against it. In 1777 David Avery, a native of Bozrah and a graduate of Yale, preached to the troops at Greenwich in favor of its abolition, hoping that Virginia might set the other states an example. Others who inveighed against it were Isaac Lewis of Wilton; Andrew Eliot of Fairfield; Samuel Andrews of Wallingford; Jonathan Edwards, Jr., of New Haven, the intimate friend of Roger Sherman who was a member of his church; Ezra Stiles; and the less- known Elam Potter of Enfield, who had made a preach- ing tour through the South in 1767-68, and who in 1777 besought the whole land, "For the Lord's sake, put away the Negro slavery."
Not content with preaching, the ministers, especially Edwards and Baldwin, published a long series of articles
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in 1773-74, signed with pseudonyms, which were copied in various papers in Connecticut and in other colonies. One series, beginning October 8, 1773, in the Connecticut journal, dealt at length with the whole subject. The issue of December 31 quoted a note from the Pennsylvania packet, saying that in Genesis God especially granted Adam dominion over the negroes of Africa, and asking that the note be inserted to silence the writers who insist- ed that Africans were of the same species as white men. Through January, articles appeared answering the first series and articles pro and con were run at intervals dur- ing the year.
The Connecticut courant ran a series against slavery in 1773, as did the New London gazette. On October 15, I773, a correspondent of the latter asked to have inserted an answer "to those idle scribblers on the Slave Trade .. . ":
I am not a little surprized to see so many pieces wrote of late against the inslaving of negroes, a custom ... handed down to us by our pious ancestors; .. . but forsooth we have now a set of men started up among us, who are so fond of scribbling, that matters never heretofore controverted, are become subjects of dispute, to the no small grief of sober thinking people.
In some cases these articles and sermons had definite results, as was occasionally noted in the papers. It is said, for example, that the influence of Abner Benedict of Middlefield was so great that most of his parishioners freed their slaves.
IX
OF the work of the many clergy who served as chaplains, and of their patriotic sermons to the troops, there is notice after notice in the papers of the day, in letters, in town histories, and in other works. A mention of a few will suffice. The only chaplain who served throughout
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the war was John Ellis of Norwich West Farms (now Franklin). In 1775 he gave up {100 of his salary to help his people bear their share of the expense of the Crown Point expedition. He was chaplain at Valley Forge and is said to have been of great comfort and help during that sad winter. Another much loved and influential chaplain was Abiel Leonard of Woodstock, who was appointed by the assembly in 1775 to the Third Connecticut Regiment and was given further leave by his people at the special request of Washington and Putnam. After further service he was suddenly suspended for overstaying a furlough because of illness in his family, and on his way home com- mitted suicide.
Other well-known chaplains were Benjamin Pomeroy who served from 1777 to 1781, William Lockwood who resigned a tutorship at Yale to enter the service, Abra- ham Baldwin of Guilford, Thomas Brockway of Lebanon Crank (now Columbia), and Ammi Ruhamah Robbins of Norfolk, son of Philemon Robbins of Branford, who had been among the first to encourage resistance to the Stamp Act. While pastor at Norfolk, Robbins had col- lected a town library, had opened a high school, and had prepared boys for college. From 1779 to 1783 he gave up one fifth of his salary every year, sharing voluntarily, as did many another minister, in the economic straits of his people. He was chaplain in Burrall's Regiment (largely recruited in Litchfield County) in Canada in 1776 and left a journal vividly describing the sufferings of the cam- paign. Twice he was ill and obliged to return home, but he went back again to his duties. He wrote of his work:
I want a constitution of brass to tarry here and do duty as seems necessary ... after inhaling such diseased breath am sick and faint. Besides, their sorrows take hold of me. .. . I would not shrink from the work. Our war is a righteous war. Our men
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are called to defend their country. Whole congregations turn out, and the ministers of the gospel should go and encourage them when doing duty; attend and pray for and with them when sick, and bury them when they die. I hope to return to my work.
Many ministers kept in close touch with their parish- ioners in camp and in the army. Almost every letter from the soldiers of Killingworth which has been preserved contains some message of respect to William Seward, their pastor, so General William S. Pierson reported a century later.
Others raised troops and sometimes marched with them. When news of the trouble in Boston in September, 1774, arrived, Jonathan Todd of East Guilford (now Madison) marched at the head of eighty-three of his townsmen, Benjamin Boardman of Middle Haddam and Eleazer May of Haddam with one hundred each. One Sabbath morning early in 1777, Samuel Eells of North Branford was chosen captain of a company recruited after his reading of Washington's appeal for troops. The ministers also encouraged spinning parties and, in general, the use of homemade commodities and were sharply hostile to those who secretly traded with the enemy.
Because of their fervor and influence some of the clergy won the special hostility of the Tories and British. Among them were Samuel Sherwood,7 Noah Williston of West Haven, Hezekiah Ripley of Greens Farms, Nathaniel Bartlett of Redding, David Ely of Ripton (now Shelton), David S. Rowland8 of Windsor, Andrew Eliot of Fairfield, and Moses Mather of Middlesex (now Darien). Nathaniel Bartlett's home was the center for patriotic conferences and he talked and preached rebellion in a Tory com-
7 See above, pp. 18-19.
8 See above, p. 16-17.
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munity. In a specially constructed bin he kept powder for emergencies and was so threatened with hanging by the Tories of the town that he carried a loaded musket on his parish rounds. The homes of Andrew Eliot, brother of John Eliot of Boston, and of Hezekiah Ripley were burned during Tryon's raid in 1779. David Ely and Noah Williston were threatened with hanging. David Rowland, before settling in Windsor, had had to flee from Provi- dence because of British wrath over his activities. Moses Mather, living in the midst of a group of Tories, encour- aged enlisting and preached rebellion with such effect that he was captured in 1781 by a group of British and Tories, five of whom were members of his own parish, taken prisoner with four of his sons and several parish- ioners to New York, and confined in Provost prison. Huntington, in his history of Stamford, said that the raid was undoubtedly planned for the express purpose of cap- turing Mather and that while in prison he was mistreated and daily insulted.
X
THE ministers of Connecticut played a leading rôle in the days of the American Revolution. The motives back of their actions were complex and are not always easy to determine. The more timid and selfish were actuated by self-interest and self-protection. Some, perhaps, were led by the enthusiasm of the time and merely followed the crowd. Political alignments and economic interests moved others. All the evidence goes to prove, however, that the larger number, including the most influential, were animated by a deep-seated conviction that England was acting unconstitutionally and that it was their spe- cial business, as students and teachers of government and of the Bible, to clarify the issues and present the under-
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lying principles of good government so clearly that even the uneducated might understand.
In "A vindication of the clergy" printed in the Con- necticut courant of June 12, 1775, the writer said:
Preaching upon government seems peculiarly fit, when our persons, religion, liberties and properties are attacked by Fleets and Armies, and threatened to be destroyed with Fire and Sword, by a tyrannical ministry. ... I hope no christian minis- ter will ever omit preaching upon government, out of a false complaisance to a few worthless tories.
Nor did they, and their effectiveness was attested by friend and enemy.
Let not your Hezekiabs you deceive, None of your pulpit Orators believe.
So Burgoyne was purported to have warned in a poem on his defeat, written by the Reverend Wheeler Case. In a bitter sermon delivered to the Loyalists in the mines at Simsbury in 1781, Simeon Baxter complained that "the Protestant Rebel Ministers" had "acted their bloody part ... both in the pulpit and the field" at the behest of "the merchant smugglers."
The clergy fanned the fire of resistance to the Stamp Act into a strong flame and in some instances actually kindled that fire. They saw clearly the necessity of a union of the colonies and urged its maintenance in the face of all discouragement. They encouraged home manufacture, kept the people informed of the course of the war, and held them steady through the dark days of uncertainty and defeat. They advocated independence and believed in the future greatness of America. They made even the humblest of their people familiar with the biblical, his- torical, and philosophical arguments for resistance and for what is now considered as the American system of
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government, based on a written constitution. Not only did they apply these arguments to the quarrel with Eng- land but, to some extent at least, to abuses and inequali- ties in their own land.
The clergy of Connecticut and of New England helped to determine the success of the Revolution and to write deep upon the hearts and minds of the people its Revolu- tionary philosophy and a lasting faith in constitutional government as the guardian of their dearest and most sacred rights.
Bibliographical Note
THE sources for this study are chiefly the sermons and addresses of the clergy, the colonial newspapers, con- temporary diaries, letters, and journals, the many town and county records and histories, memorial and cente- nary sermons and addresses, biographies, historical col- lections, and a few special studies and articles, such as: Joel T. Headley, Chaplains and clergy of the Revolution (New York, 1864); William B. Sprague, Annals of the American pulpit (9 vols., New York, 1857-69); Henry P. Johnston, Yale and ber honor-roll in the American Revolu- ion (New York, 1888); William C. Fowler, "Ministers of Connecticut in the Revolution," in Centennial papers published by order of the General Conference of the Congre- rational Churches of Connecticut (Hartford, 1877).
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