USA > Connecticut > Litchfield County > Warren > The Congregational church, Warren, Connecticut, l750-1956 > Part 9
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During these years additional improvements were made in the parsonage. Bathroom and modern plumbing had been put in a few years before; now a coal furnace was installed, together with other needed equipment. A year later a new well was drilled.
The Second World War, now at the height of its devas- tating course, called twenty-five Warren boys into the Service. The Ladies' Aid was challenged, not only to continue its regu- lar work for schools and churches, but also to contribute cloth- ing for overseas relief and sewing kits and other gifts for men in Service. Needless to say, the challenge was loyally met. Members of the church also did their full share in the "Watch- ing Service" which was instituted by the town in the interest of national defense, the observers taking their turn in the little tower erected on the hill south of the church in a day- and-night lookout for planes, possibly enemy planes bent on destruction.
At the close of his second year Mr. Barber resigned, much to the regret of his parishioners, to accept the interim pastorate of Pilgrim Congregational Church in Canaan and
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the principalship of the village school in Norfolk, a combined war-time emergency position. In 1950 he again combined pastoral and educational duties, becoming pastor of the Church of Christ in Wilson and also professor of philosophy and psychology at Hillyer College in Hartford. The following year he was ordained by the Hartford Council of Congrega- tional Churches and Ministers, and three years later he be- came minister of the church in Wilson on a full time basis. Mr. Barber has indeed been a notable exponent of the age-old Congregational principle that religion and education, the church and the school, are inseparable allies.
REV. ARTHUR E. GREGG, 1944 - 1947
Mr. Gregg came to Warren after twenty-five years of service in Congregational churches in Vermont. Various con- siderations combined to bring him and his family to Connecti- cut, among them being the hope that they were "getting nearer the equator", but a couple of Warren winters convinced them that in this respect, at least, they had entertained a false hope.
Mr. Gregg was especially interested in the church school and was disappointed to find that adequate facilities for the efficient conduct of this work were not available. He intro- duced the idea of the Vacation Bible School and carried the experiment on successfully for two summers.
Because of his enjoyment of out-of-door work, Mr. Gregg spent much time improving the parsonage property. That this effort was appreciated is shown by a letter which he re- ceived from the church clerk after his departure: "In behalf of the church members, we wish to thank you both for your kindness and the good work you have done while in Warren. I would also like to say that the parsonage has never looked nicer or the grounds have never been kept so beautifully."
The two years in Warren completed a service of forty years in Congregational church work, and at their close Mr. Gregg
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submitted his resignation. He and his family have since made their home in Deep River, where he has had an opportunity to continue his out-of-doors activities, caring for lawns and gar- dens, raising fruit, and engaging in other useful and enjoy- able activities. He continues to preach as occasion arises.
REV. GEORGE C. L. COOLEY, 1947 -
The present pastor, Mr. George Cooley, was born in Bos- ton in 1890. He grew up, however, in Springfield, Massachu- setts, graduated from the Classical High School, and spent the following four years in various occupations in that city. In his early twenties he went to New York, and later to Pitts- burgh. The business experience of these years gave him a knowledge of practical affairs and an understanding of human relations which have proved valuable throughout his pastoral career.
Meanwhile, an activity that was of supreme importance to him, as it has been throughout his entire life, was music. In high school he was leader of the orchestra. Later, he played a violin in the Springfield Symphony Orchestra and sang in a church quartet and in various other musical organizations. In New York he continued to play the violin and was tenor soloist in church choirs. He also participated in grand and light opera, spent one season on the road, and sang in the Chau- tauqua Circuit. These varied experiences not only afforded him pleasure and additional musical training, but they also provided enough money to pay nearly all of his expenses in the theological seminary. Thus music has been for him both a vocation and an avocation, and always an important aid in his ministerial work.
Mr. Cooley has also been closely associated with the Y.M.C.A. In Pittsburgh he became Social and Membership Secretary of the local "Y". At the close of his army service in World War I he was appointed Demobilization Secretary at the Germantown Y.M.C.A. in Philadelphia, in which position
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he acted as counsellor to hundreds of young men who were leaving the Service and facing the problems and opportunities of civilian life.
In 1919 Mr. Cooley entered Crozer Theological Seminary, a liberal Baptist institution in Chester, Pennsylvania, from which he graduated three years later. He says with pride, however, that he has "for three hundred years been a Con- gregationalist", in fact ever since the Mayflower landed on Plymouth shore. He was ordained in 1921 by the Philadelphia Association of Congregational Churches, and became pastor of the Kensington Congregational Church in Philadelphia where he remained for ten years.
There followed pastorates in the Whitneyville Church in Hamden, Connecticut, and The First Congregational Church in Ashland, Wisconsin; in the latter place he continued to take educational courses in Northland College. He also served as secretary under the USO for the Army and Navy Y.M.C.A. at Fort Hancock and was director of the Asbury Park USO.
From this background of rich and varied experience Mr. Cooley came to Warren, and during his nine years here he has entered with earnest and sincere interest into every phase of church and community life. He has been especially active in the Grange, freely contributing his musical and dramatic talents to its program.
Perhaps the most significant emphasis of his ministry in Warren has been his work with children and young people. For many years a leader in young people's conferences, es- pecially in the Middle Atlantic States, he has a keen interest in this phase of pastoral work. His weekly class in the Warren school has trained children in the basic principles of religion, and under his leadership the Young People's Fellowship of the church has developed a strong program of worship, study, and social fellowship.
During most of his life Mr. Cooley has been secretary of something or other. Indeed he says, "I must have been born
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with a pencil behind my ear!" For at least twenty-five of the thirty-five years of his ministry he has acted as scribe or registrar of Congregational associations. At present he is a member of the Board of Directors of the Connecticut State Council of Churches. He is also deeply interested in the prob- lems of suburban and rural churches, and is the present chair- man of the Town and Country Church Committee of the State Council.
Mr. Cooley has been vitally interested in the project of restoration of the old meeting house and in plans for observ- ance of the bicentennial. May he continue to lead the church in strength and vigor as it enters into its third century.
REDEDICATION
On the last Sunday in September, 1955, the annual Old Home Day was observed once again by church and community. On such occasions it is always appropriate to recall the tradi- tions of the past, and it was especially appropriate on this particular day when the old high pulpit, now restored to its place of honor, was to be rededicated.
This history has attempted to tell, however imperfectly and incompletely, the two-hundred-year-long story of the Warren church. We have recalled the gathering of the church in 1756 and the building of the small, rude meeting house of 1767. We have seen that the stately edifice of 1818 reflected the noblest ideals of New England ecclesiastical architecure, and we have likewise noted that the later remodeling was the reflection of a fashion current at the mid-century period. Again the concept has changed, and this church, like others of its kind, has sought to recreate the beauty and the archi- tectural integrity of the original builders-though with due consideration for such modern innovations as adequate heat- ing and lighting.
For some fifteen years before this Old Home Day the Re- storation Committee, under the leadership of Miss Edith
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MODEL SHOWING THE STEEPLE OF 1818
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MODEL SHOWING THE STEEPLE AS REBUILT IN 1891
THE PULPIT RESTORED 1956
Sackett, whose ancestors played so large a part in the early history of the church, had been hard at work. Several import- ant projects had been completed, including the installation of a coal furnace to succeed the unsightly and inadequate wood- burning stoves, and of the electric lights that shed their soft glow from the vaulted ceiling. The beautiful Palladian win- dow had been restored to its rightful place in the western wall, and all was in readiness for the final scene.
Many people had participated in the work, people whose love for the old church marked them as spiritual, if not lineal descendants of the Founding Fathers. Much of the restora- tion fund had been secured through memorial gifts recorded in the Book of Remembrance, of which Miss Edith Brattlund was the designer and custodian. The pulpit itself, of exquisite- ly grained butternut wood, and the gracefully curving stairs leading into it had been recreated by Harold Feller, cabinet maker, enough of the original pieces having been retrieved from attics and cellars, to reveal the original design. Finally, a group of volunteers, under the leadership of Herbert Curtiss, worked long and hard to remove the incongruous platform and desk (once regarded as so eminently "suitable") and to set the old pulpit again high on the four fluted pillars, pillars which, though ignominiously discarded, had somehow miraculously escaped destruction.
In imagination on this Old Home Day one could almost see Deacon Tanner and Deacon Hopkins, or perhaps a couple of elderly tithingmen, seated in grave dignity beneath the elevated pulpit, where they might "receive the perpendicular droppings of the word", meanwhile keeping a watchful eye upon the congregation. Once again the minister slowly mounts the steps, enters the pulpit, and gently closes the little gate. The afternoon sun lights the Palladian window, shining through some of the very same glass through which it shone when the venerable Peter Starr ascended that same pulpit on the first day of June, 1820, and, with a full heart, led the people in the dedication of their new house of worship.
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The topic of the pastor's sermon on this rededication Sunday, "A Glorious Past Is not Enough", sent the mind rov- ing back over that long Past and forward into the unknown Future. Did the days seem "glorious" to the people who were living them, one day after another down through the long centuries ? Common people like ourselves, filling the days with commonplace activities, enduring toil and hardship, knowing sacrifice and tragedy more often, perhaps, than satis- faction and happiness-did they realize that they were mak- ing history? But we today speak truly of the glorious past, for these forefathers of ours achieved great things : they con- quered a wilderness, they developed a community, they helped to create a nation dedicated to knowledge, justice and liberty. Above all, they established a church and maintained it in spite of almost incredible difficulties. They erected a stately building, where many generations have worshipped, finding inspiration and courage each for his own day.
The great French writer, de Tocqueville, landing in Amer- ica more than a century ago, wrote: "I sought for the great- ness and genius of America in her commodious harbors and her ample rivers-and it was not there. I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her fertile fields and boundless forests-and it was not there. I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her rich mines and vast world commerce-and it was not there. I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her democratic Congress and her matchless Constitution-and it was not there.
"Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because America is good-and if America ever ceases to be good- America will cease to be great."
The world of today is vastly different from the world of our forefathers. The entire pattern of life has changed. We accept as commonplace a manner of everyday living that to them would have been inconceivable. The social structure
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has changed. The problems of the family, the community, the nation, are vastly different from the problems of earlier days, though, truly, no less perplexing. Our religious life, too, has changed, and we could not if we would revert to the simpler standards of an earlier time. The twentieth century Sabbath, even for those of us who still regard it as a day apart, is quite unlike the Sabbath of the eighteenth century. The relation of pastor and people is different. Can anyone imagine a parishioner addressing the first two pastors, clad in their solemn garb, as "Sylvanus" or "Peter"? Even their wives doubtless addressed them as "Mr. Osborn" and "Mr. Starr". The church itself, in many respects, has changed-its forms of worship, its theological interpretations, its methods of approach.
But one vital thing has not changed. The church still stands, the source of inspiration, the center of Christian liv- ing. Its spire still points heavenward. Its bell still summons the people to worship. Suppose there had been no church! Suppose our forefathers had been so preoccupied with the affairs of everyday life that they had had no time for the spiritual vision! Suppose they had lacked the courage, the capacity for hard work, the willingness to sacrifice, to make that vision a reality! What would have been the his- tory of this community if there had been no church ? But our forefathers did not fail! They gathered a church. They erected a meeting house upon this Warren hilltop, and its in- fluence has gone out to the far places of the world. From the Past we have indeed received a priceless heritage; for the Future we have a privilege and a responsibility.
Again, with Parson Starr we say, "Give ear, O my people to my law; incline your ears to the words of my mouth-which we have known, and our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from their children, shewing to the generations to come the praises of the Lord, and his strength and his wonder- ful works that he hath done."
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CHAPTER IX.
THE WESTWARD MIGRATION
D URING the second half of the seventeenth century and the first half of the eighteenth groups of home-seeking pioneers wandered down from Massachusetts and es- tablished new homes in the central and southern parts of Con- necticut. In the mid-eighteenth century their sons and grandsons pushed on toward the northwest, thus completing the settlement of the Colony of Connecticut. In the late eighteenth and the early nineteenth centuries many of their children, in their turn, looked hopefully toward regions still more remote and as yet unsettled. To the north lay Vermont, sometimes called "The Child of Litchfield County", and to the west, New York which, except for the great feudal estates of the Dutch along the Hudson Valley, was virtually untouched by white settlement. Into these regions went these later pioneers, there to set up their homes and establish their new communities. To the churches back home this was a mis- sionary challenge, and they sent out their ministers as circuit riders to preach, perform marriages, officiate at funerals, and wherever possible to aid in the formation of local churches. Mr. Starr, it will be remembered, made three such missionary journeys into Vermont, entertained at times in the homes of former parishioners.
Beyond, lay the "Western Reserve", unofficially chris- tened "New Connecticut". After the Revolution Connecticut, in common with other states which in colonial days had re- ceived vast tracts of western lands by royal charter, ceded these lands to the Federal Government; but Connecticut, with true Yankee thrift, "reserved" to itself one tract in north-
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eastern Ohio. This territory was immediately offered for sale to individual purchasers, the proceeds forming the nu- cleus of a state fund for public education. Promptly, enter- prising men sold their Connecticut or Vermont farms, yoked up their ox teams, and headed for Ohio, to found Akron, Cleveland, and many smaller towns on the Western Reserve.
Still beyond lay Illinois, which could be reached by way of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers; and farther yet the vague and mysterious Northwest, separated by dangerous streams and forbidding mountains and populated by hostile Indian tribes. Yet even these distant regions, with their illimitable prairies or their magnificent forests, offered irrisistible at- traction to men who were finding the small, stony, over- crowded farms of Litchfield County wholly inadequate for themselves and their often large families.
The Connecticut Gazeteer of 1819 estimated that, though the population of the state at that time was less than 300,000, the emigrants from the state, with their descendants, numbered more than 700,000. Mr. Starr in his half-century sermon, preached in 1822, made the amazing statement that, though there were at that time only about 900 inhabitants in the town, nevertheless it had been "somewhat accurately as- certained" that during the fifty years of his ministry "2837 have emigrated from among us".
The Carter family may well serve as an illustration. Thomas Carter, he whose name heads the list of signers to the church covenant, had brought with him to Warren at least ten of his fifteen children. In the two succeeding generations, of Carters born in Warren, six died in Vermont, eighteen in New York State, twenty in Ohio, and thirteen in Illinois, Wis- consin, Michigan, Washington, or Oregon-fifty-seven War- ren-born Carters who made their contribution to the develop- ing West, many of them outstanding leaders in church, school, and community life.
*Carter-a Genealogy compiled and published by Howard Williston Carter, Norfolk, Connecticut, 1909.
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To mention three individual members of this family as examples of the varied contribution's made by these migrating Yankees: Lorenzo Carter, born in Warren in 1766, became at the age of eleven the chief support of his mother and five younger children when his father died of smallpox which he probably contracted in the army. Later, Lorenzo with his family moved to Vermont, where he helped to lay out the town of Rutland. Still unsatisfied, the following year he set out for Ohio. There he built a large log cabin, which served both as a tavern for the accommodation of travelers and also as a general store. He gained great influence over the Indians and was often called upon to settle disputes between Indians and Whites, and even among the Indians themselves. The price he paid for this respect was the loss of his son, a child of six whom the Indians had often petted and who was stolen, never to be heard from again. The first school in "Cleveland Village" was held in Mr. Carter's home.
Another Carter, born in Warren in 1809, migrated to Illinois, became a large scale dealer in horses and cattle, and was appointed by the government during the Mexican War to have charge of the army horses and mules, together with all forage arrangements.
Or again, Rev. Homer Carter, D.D., son of Deacon Ado- niram Carter, born in Warren, became Secretary of Home Missions for the State of Wisconsin, a man greatly beloved and honored.
Such examples could be multiplied many times in many families to show the influence that radiated from the small town of Warren during the years of expansion. Particularly in Ohio's Western Reserve migrants from Warren mingled with those from other parts of Connecticut in the settlement of Tallmadge, Edinburgh, Canfield, Cuyahoga Falls and other towns .*
*Although Warren Sacketts, and perhaps other families, settled in the town of Warren, Ohio, the name of that town bears no relation to that of the Connecticut town, the name having been chosen in honor of Moses Warren, who was a surveyor in the party of Moses Cleaveland when the Western Reserve was surveyed.
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Wherever they settled, the men and women who went out from the Warren Church were influential in helping to organize and maintain other churches, but there are two which are in a very special sense daughter churches. Of the one in Waverly, Illinois, more will be said in the next section. From the history of the church in Ruggles, Ohio, comes the following story of courage and devotion: "This church was organized Thursday, January 11, 1827, as the First Congre- gational church in Ruggles with a membership of eleven (11) persons as follows: Harvey Sackett, Ezra D. Smith, Norman Carter, Ruben Fox, Rachel Curtis, Lorinda Beach, Jerusha Peck, Thalia Sackett, Mina Fox, Cynthia Smith, and Sarah Sturtevant. All united by letter and all of whom were mem- bers of the Congregational Church of Warren, Connecticut.
"They had the stamp of the stern conscientious old Puri- tans from whom they descended and were firm and decided in their opinions. All were highly seasoned with Christian grace. Thursday, January 11, 1827, over terrible roads, forest arched and not paved, they in ox drawn carts, gathered at the home of Harvey Sackett to organize a church where the articles of faith were adopted." The Warren church salutes her daugh- ter, Ruggles !
Such were the people who went out from Warren, as from other parts of Connecticut and from the other New Eng- land states, carrying with them and planting deep the tradi- tions and ideals that have given New England a unique place in the nation's history. But of five individuals who were des- tined to play an especially conspicuous and dramatic part in the developing West, it is appropriate to speak in more detail.
DR. JULIAN M. STURTEVANT College President
There was little of the romantic adventure so often pictured by novelists of the pioneer movement in the west-
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ward trek of the Sturtevant family .* On the contrary, the motive was, as it probably was in the great majority of cases, the very practical necessity of making a living. It had not been an easy decision. The ancestors of Warren Sturtevant and of his wife, Lucy Tanner, had been among the first set- tlers of Warren, and strong ties bound them to home and community. It was hard for Lucy to bid farewell to her beloved brother Joseph, deacon of the church, proprietor of the tavern across the way which was to play so distinguished a part in the battle for temperance, honored citizen of the town. Moreover, their two sons, aged eight and eleven, needed the advantages of education in an established com- munity. But life on a relatively unproductive "Town Hill" farm, difficult at best, had been rendered still more difficult by the War of 1812 with its crippling effect on agriculture and commerce; and at length, faced by a mortgage which he was unable to meet, Warren Sturtevant decided to follow the path already blazed to the Western Reserve.
Accordingly, in the year 1816, after a tearful farewell to relatives and friends most of whom they would never see again, Warren and his brother with their families, a party of seven adults and six children, set out, bound for Tallmadge, Ohio. They had two canvas-covered wagons, each drawn by a pair of oxen with one horse harnessed in front. Crossing the Hudson in a sailboat at Newburgh, they journeyed through New Jersey and Pennsylvania, over the Allegheny Mountains to Pittsburgh, across the Alleghany River and along the banks of the Ohio, then northward to Tallmadge, a distance of more than five hundred miles, a journey of about five weeks.
In Tallmadge there were already several Warren families and when they at last arrived, the travelers found a hearty welcome awaiting them. The town boasted a church and an academy. It was a Warren man, Reuben Beach, who, on the
*Julian M. Sturtevant: An Autobiography-Fleming H. Revell, 1896.
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day appointed for the raising of the meeting house, had as- sured an early start for the day's work by offering a gallon of whiskey to the man who would "land the first stick of timber". The keg that had contained that whiskey was long preserved as a treasured relic in the community.
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