USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > Waterbury > The churches of Mattatuck : a record of bi-centennial celebration at Waterbury, Connecticut, Novermber 4th and 5th, 1891 > Part 11
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When the Congregational society was formed in Prospect (then Columbia) a survey was made to establish the society limits, that all included within such limits might be subject to taxation for the support of the society. The original map and the record of the survey are still preserved,-although the trees which are mentioned as marking the boundary lines have disappeared. This survey contained 9,291 acres, of which 3,239 lay in the town of Waterbury and 6,051 in the town of Cheshire. Of the Waterbury section, 2,384 acres lay in that part of the town known as Salem society. The ter- ritory described included substantially the tract of land which now constitutes the town of Prospect.
Columbia (as it was originally called) was for a period of time a flourishing place, supporting man- ufactures of some importance. But it has gradually diminished, and now there are more old cellars marking the places where houses formerly stood than there are houses in the town.
The church was organized on the 14th of May, 1798, with sixteen members. All but two of these had Bible names, such as Abraham, Ephraim, Asahel, Damaris, Jerusha and Mehitabel. Evidently the people of "Columbia " "went by the Bible " in those days,-differing materially from a certain old tar who said to a friend that was trying to direct his mind to the gospel, "We don't know nothing
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about the Bible here; we go by the almanac." I suppose they thought they went by the Bible also when in their "rules of practice" they forbade " card-playing, frolicking and horse-racing."
The first pastor was Oliver Hitchcock. He remained with the church thirteen years, his pas- torate being the longest of any except my own. From the Rev. Franklin Countryman's historical address * we learn that Mr. Hitchcock was " a good farmer, and proficient in laying stone walls." Cer- tainly he had plenty of stone to practice with, and there are about twelve acres of land connected with the parsonage where I suppose he demon- strated his ability as a farmer. The records show that he was also proficient in building hearts which had been hearts of stone into the walls of the church of Christ.
The church prospered, and increased in mem- bership, until 1832, when the Rev. J. D. Chapman became pastor. Mr. Chapman embraced the doc- trines of the Perfectionists (afterwards known as the "Oneida community") and led away with him many of the prominent members of the church. When afterward all who entertained these beliefs were excommunicated, it involved the cutting off of a great portion of the working church.
The number of members at the present time is ninety-eight. The Prospect church has no reason to regret that she was ever born, for her life has been fruitful of good. She is feeble, and may be dying, but she is giving her life to others.
* Delivered by the Rev. Franklin Countryman, then pastor of the church in Prospect, at the time of the nation's centennial. It was published in the Water- bury American of July 19th, 1876, in which it fills nearly three columns. - EDITOR.
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THE CHURCH IN THOMASTON.
THE CHURCH IN THOMASTON.
BY THE REV. R. G. BUGBEE.
These exercises naturally turn our thoughts to the past, and remind me of the old adage which I used to hear when I was a boy-that "children should be seen and not heard." The saying is in many places obsolescent, or else is transformed in- to its opposite : "Children should be heard and not seen." But in this large family gathering of churches, where there are some of the old stock of sister churches to be heard from and several also of the elder daughters with an interesting history, the saying ought to be enforced; the granddaughters and great-granddaughters should be seen and not heard. Therefore I bring very briefly the greeting of the First Congregational church in Thomaston to our venerable and honored grandmother, the First church in Waterbury. We felicitate you, that you have reached your two hundredth anni- versary in so ruddy a state of health, with steadily increasing vitality and an ever widening influence. We also bring Christian greeting to the other churches of this family; and it seems like a genu- ine old fashioned New England Thanksgiving to meet so many relatives and so many generations under one roof. And as grand-parents always have an interest in their posterity, we stand up with childish simplicity and tell briefly our age and a few other facts.
We shall be fifty-four years old next December. The church was formed from the church in Ply-
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mouth, December 7th, 1837. It was organized with thirty-seven members, only two of whom, I think, remain upon our roll to-day. One of them, Tertius D. Potter, who has served the church in several offi- cial positions, is now ninety-eight years old .* Our present membership numbers 307, while there have been more than 900 different persons enrolled in our list of members during our church life. Ger- mans, Swedes, English, Scotch and French have found fellowship with our American-born members. Looking hastily over the records I find that the church has had in fifty-four years nine pastors and acting pastors; so you see that it has endeavored to keep abreast of most of our modern Congrega- tional churches in one respect at least-in not clinging to a minister till he is too old to move out of town.
We feel honored in belonging to this family of churches. We take pride in the fact that we are a branch of the trunk which sprang from the mus- tard seed planted in Waterbury two hundred years ago. What a grand family of churches it is! Its branches reach out into many parts of the sur- rounding country; and perhaps there are churches in distant places, unknown to us to-day, which really sprang from the fruit of this tree wafted by providential forces to far away states. In that case, some of our branches reach out thousands of miles, interlocking with branches from other church families, as the limbs of a dense forest intertwine and embrace each other.
* Tertius D. Potter, has passed away since the bi-centennial celebration took place. He was a deacon in the church in Plymouth prior to 1834, and in the church at Thomaston after that was organized. He was born September 25th, 1793, and died January roth, 1892, in the ninety-ninth year of his age .- EDITOR.
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THE CHURCH AT TERRYVILLE.
And what harvests of precious fruit-immortal souls-have already been garnered from this church tree! As we think of the thousands who have been entered upon our church rolls, but have now passed away in faith, we are reminded of the inspired word, "Therefore let us also, seeing we are com- passed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith." We have in this family of churches a living illustration of that divine saying, "The kingdom of heaven is like unto a grain of mustard seed which a man took and sowed in his field; which indeed is less than all seeds; but when it is grown it is greater than the herbs and becometh a tree; so that the birds of heaven come and lodge in the branches thereof." What better commentary on this Scripture than the mustard seed of two hundred years ago com- pared with the massive trunk, the strong branches and the immortal fruit of our church family tree to-day ?
THE CHURCH AT TERRYVILLE.
BY J. A.
When the men of "Northbury," after a long struggle, succeeded in fixing the place of their meeting house on Plymouth hill, they felt, no doubt, that the cause of justice had triumphed, and little suspected that the site they had secured would in after years be inconveniently distant
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from the chief centres of population within their society limits. In the course of time these chief centres became established at Plymouth Hollow (now Thomaston) on the one side, and Terryville on the other; and when the Congregationalists in these places became sufficiently numerous they felt that they must have churches of their own. This conclusion was reached, and decisive action taken, at about the same time in both cases. The church in Plymouth Hollow was organized on the 7th of December, 1837, and the church in Terryville on
the 2nd of January, 1838. The mother church "on the hill" parted with fifty-one of its members in the one case and forty-nine in the other,-thus losing one hundred members by colonization within less than a single month. As all the original members of both the new churches. came from the Plymouth church, their relation to the ancient church of Waterbury by lineal descent is obvious.
The first pastor of the Terryville church was the Rev. Nathaniel Richardson, who was settled in August, 1838. The new church edifice was dedi- cated, and the pastor ordained and installed, at the same time, August 8th. His pastorate terminated within two years (July 2d, 1840), and more than a year afterward (that is, in October, 1841) he was followed by the Rev. Merrill Richardson, who was pastor of the church at two different times. He was dismissed in July, 1846, and settled again, May 16th, 1849,-the pastorate of the Rev. Judson A. Root coming between, and, owing to the failure of his health, lasting only six months (from October, 1846, to April, 1847). Mr. Richardson remained with the church until January 18th, 1858, when he was dis-
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missed to a pastorate in Worcester, Mass. Mr. John Monteith, jr., was ordained and installed, October 27th, 1858, and continued until July 31st, 1860. The Rev. Franklin A. Spencer was installed, June 24th, 1863,-the pulpit having been supplied in the meantime by the Rev. A. Hastings Ross, the Rev. Edwin Dimock (for eighteen months) and others. In 1865, the Rev. Ephraim M. Wright became "acting pastor," and served the church until 1869. Mr. Henry B. Mead was ordained and installed, June 7th, 1871, and dismissed, May 12th, 1874. He was followed, in October, by the Rev. Leverett S. Griggs, whose father, the Rev. Leverett Griggs, D. D., had been pastor in the adjoining parish of Bristol from 1856 to 1869, and was still residing there. Although Mr. Griggs was not installed, his pastorate continued until October, 1887, being the longest thus far enjoyed by the Terryville church. The Rev. W. F. Arms became pastor in March, 1888, and continues to the present time.
As we have seen, the church at its organization numbered forty-nine members. Twenty years later, at the close of the Rev. Merrill Richardson's pas- torate (that is, in January, 1858), the number on the roll was 149, of whom 108 were resident members. In the spring of that year sixty-four were added on profession of faith-fruits of the revival of religion which had taken place throughout the country. Again, in 1864, there was a large addition (thirty- four), and since that time the church has gradually and steadily increased in numbers and in strength
In 1866, the church reported seventeen of its members as having fought in the war for the
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Union, four of whom had died in the service. In 1878, the church edifice was altered and repaired, and on the 6th of November was rededicated. An organ was placed in it, at a cost of eight thousand dollars, the money being raised by the Sunday school. At different times in its history, the church has sustained a mission Sunday school in addition to the school at the centre, and in various other ways has manifested its interest in the exten- sion of the kingdom of Christ. It has also "raised up" four ministers of the gospel, one of whom, Edwin Johnson, was educated at the expense of the church. He was born December Ist, 1826, gradua- ted at Yale college in 1846, and ordained in 1851. In 1867 he became the first pastor of the First Con- gregational church in Baltimore, Md., was pastor of the South Congregational church in Bridgeport from 1870 to 1876, and died December 25th, 1883. The others are the Rev. Horace R. Williams, who is pastor of the Congregational church in Clinton, Mich .; his brother, the Rev. Moseley H. Williams, who was for some years a secretary of the Ameri- can Sunday School Union, and is now a member of the editorial staff of the "Sunday School Times;" and the Rev. Linus Blakesley, pastor (since 1870) of the First Congregational church in Topeka, Kansas.
Three years after the organization of the church, Eli Terry, senior, erected a large and commodious dwelling house, and presented it to the ecclesiasti- cal society to be used as a parsonage. This was in August, 1841. He also made and presented to the society a wooden clock for the tower of the church, which is still in good condition.
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THE EAGLE ROCK CHURCH, THOMASTON.
The church, although a child of the Plymouth church, was not, like that, consociated. In 1870, when the Hartford Central (afterward the Farm- ington Valley) conference of churches was organ- ized, it connected itself with that body. On the organization of the Naugatuck Valley conference, February 22nd, 1883, it transferred its connection to that, and continued in fellowship therewith until June, 1891.
THE EAGLE ROCK CHURCH, THOMASTON.
BY J. A.
The Eagle Rock church was organized in 1879, to meet the wants of a small manufacturing commu- nity situated near Reynolds Bridge, in the town of Thomaston. The Rev. E. B. Sanford, then of Thomaston, began a work of visitation and preach- ing in the place in May, 1878. A chapel was built, and on the 29th of October, 1879, a church of twen- ty-six members was organized, ten of whom were received on profession of faith, the rest from other churches, most of them from the Congregational church in Thomaston. About fifty families were included in the parish.
Mr. Sanford served the church as pastor until September, 1882. In the following May he was succeeded by Mr. F. J. Pohl, of the Yale Theologi- cal Seminary, who was ordained there on the 12th of September, and who served the church for about a year. In November, 1885, he was succeeded by Mr. Ursinus O. Mohr, also of the Yale Seminary, who labored in this field during 1886, and was
8
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ordained there on the 25th of February, 1887, then having the foreign missionary work in view. His successor was the Rev. Joseph S. Burgess, whose brief term of service began in August, 1887, and who died at Reynolds Bridge on the 28th of Feb- ruary, 1888. Mr. Burgess was born on the 15th of August, 1815, and spent most of his life as a minis- ter among the Free Baptist churches of Maine. He was a pastor at Lewiston for nearly twenty years; was a trustee of Bates College, and for a time cor- responding secretary of the Home Missionary soci- ety of the Free Baptist churches. Late in life he became a resident in Waterbury, and, with his fam- ily, largely identified with the First church. After entering upon the pastorate of the Eagle Rock church, he connected himself with the Naugatuck Valley Association of Congregational ministers. He was succeeded by the Rev. Dighton Moses, who began his ministry at Reynolds Bridge on the Ist of September, 1888, and continued it until April, 1890. Since that time the church has been without a pastor. Its present membership numbers about fifty.
Throughout its history, it has been subject to the vicissitudes incident to life in a somewhat isolated and changeful manufacturing community com- posed largely of foreigners, and has been depend- ent on the aid of the church in Thomaston, and the Connecticut Missionary society.
IV.
EARLY AND LATER PASTORS.
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*
JEREMIAH PECK.
· JEREMIAH PECK.
BY MISS SARAH J. PRICHARD.
The Rev. Jeremiah Peck has for so many years been considered the first minister of Waterbury that the mere mention of a predecessor carries with it a certain sense of disloyalty to that gentle- man. But our town records bear indications that may not be disregarded that a clergyman min- istered to the spiritual needs of this wilderness people, and dwelt in "the house built for the min- ister," before the year 1689.
In the land divisions of 1688 we find a name unknown hitherto in the town. Twenty-nine acres of meadow land up the west branch of the Nauga- tuck river, at and near Reynolds Bridge, were allotted to four proprietors by name, the first men- tioned of whom is Mr. Frayser. The appellation "Mr." in itself is significant, as it stands alone on our records until the coming of Mr. Peck. This land was to be divided by its four owners accord- ing to their proprietary rights. A careful follow- ing of its division among the three men whose pro- prietary rights are known reveals the fact that the number of acres left for Mr. Frayser was more than that of any one of the landed proprietors and equaled that of a one hundred and fifty pound pro- priety, belonging only to one of the three great lots reserved at the beginning by the General Court's committee " for public and pious uses." At a later date the same land is found in the possession of the children of the Rev. Jeremiah Peck, who record
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that it was their honored father's land. Now, how that land, once granted to Mr. Frayser, became Mr. Peck's requires solution.
On North Main street there still stands an ancient house, the dwelling place of the late Charles D. Kingsbury. Historical secrets were stored away beneath its roof, that even the owner knew not of, which by the extreme courtesy of his son, Mr. Frederick J. Kingsbury, have been made available for historical purposes.
In the beginning, the records of the town were kept on sheets of paper. If one sheet of paper could not contain all the words of a document, another sheet was sewed to it. The original arti- cles of agreement for the settlement of Waterbury found in the Kingsbury house are twice sewed. After a time certain of these documents were gath- ered together and sewed at the edge, thus forming a book, a portion of which "proprietors' book" Dr. Henry Bronson, the esteemed historian of Waterbury, found about forty years ago, and it remains with us to this day. Certain other origi- nal documents which either once formed a part of that book, or should have been made part of it, were quietly stored away in the house referred to, biding their time, and by one of them we think the question we have raised concerning the possession of Mr. Frayser's land is satisfactorily answered. It is a division of meadow lands, both up and down the river, is without date, but the absence of Mr. Peck's name is evidence that it was prior to the date of his coming. On it the thirty-one origi- nal proprietors are all represented, and when we look for the three great lots we find two under that
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JEREMIAH PECK.
name, but the third one is designated as "the lot bought," from which it is inferred that Mr. Fray- ser's great-lot rights were returned to the town and bestowed upon Mr. Peck. We also find, in 1687, in a list of twelve men, to each of whom the General Court of Connecticut granted two hundred acres of land, and ten of whom we know to have been min- isters of the church of Christ, the name " Mr. John Frayser." If we look at the language of the record relating to the bestowal of the minister's house upon Mr. Peck, under the light of this revealment, we seem to find in it a meaning hitherto unseen; for the proprietors gave to him "the house built for the minister, with the home lot, at his first entrance there with his family." Again, there is a suggestion, that he may have died in Waterbury, in the somewhat unusual provision made for the occurrence of death, in the following sentence of the same record, relating to land bestowed upon Mr. Peck. The language is : "And, if the providence of God should so dispose that he should die before the four years be out, it shall fall to his heirs."
Beyond the above facts, we know nothing of Mr. Frayser; but, however events may have been obscured by time and the loss of records, there can be no question regarding the probability that there was a minister in Waterbury before the year 1689. A General Court that existed, first of all, to provide for the spiritual nourishment of the colo- nists, and considered thirty families a sufficient number to support a minister, and only gave con- sent to the existence of a plantation at Mattatuck upon the report that the meadows hereabout could maintain thirty families; a General Court that
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withheld its consent to township rights and its blessing from petitioners therefor until the requi- site number of households had been gathered, is not to be suspected of having allowed this wilder- ness child of its adoption to remain eleven years without a spiritual guide. And thus we give our "hail " and " farewell " to the unknown Mr. Frayser.
The Rev. Jeremiah Peck came to Waterbury ripe in years and rich in experience. Had he kept a diary from his youth to age, and left it as a legacy to the First church of Christ in Waterbury, what a valuable mine of historic lore the old church might to-day possess. We should surely find in it a boy's account of the voyage of the good ship "Hector," in the year 1637, from London to Boston. We should know the names on that passenger list which has never been found, though carefully sought; and he might have told us whether the Rev. John Daven- port, vicar of St. Stephen's in Coleman street, Lon- don, dared to cross the ocean under his own name, and how New Haven looked when the goodly and glorious company reached the "red hills," after- wards called East and West Rocks, in 1638. We should then know and understand where and how he acquired his knowledge of Hebrew and Greek and Latin.
The question of his life, and how it was spent until he attained his thirty-third year, would be made plain to us. Possibly we might in that interesting diary learn that his father was, as has been suggested, one of the merchants of London who owned shares in the ship " Hector," and that the lad went back to England, and there acquired his store of Hebrew and Greek and Latin, that had
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made his name sufficiently famous to call the owner thereof to be the first teacher of the colony school at New Haven; and, all this would harmonize with the words regarding him to be found in Stiles's Itinerary: "It is said that he came, a minister, out of England." That a man of his force of character and acquirements should remain in a new country in utter obscurity, so that his name is unmentioned until his thirty-third year, when it suddenly shone out, like a star of considerable magnitude, seems improbable and gives plausibility to the above report concerning him.
On the contrary, Cotton Mather, that oft sus- pected truth-teller, had plainly written of Jeremiah Peck that "he was bred at Harvard," but no cata- logue of that university gave a place to him. Time has, once more, verified Mather, for a few years ago there came to view certain college stewards' account books, in one of which are found credits to Jeremiah Peck, from the year 1653 to 1656. He possibly was one of the seventeen young men who left Harvard without a degree, because the time of study was prolonged one year. We might reconcile the statements in Stiles's Itinerary and those of the college steward's account book, could we find authority for suggestion, even, that he was instruc- tor at Harvard, and not a student. At present, his life from the time of his arrival with his father in New England to his thirtieth year is absolutely unknown.
How readily a few lines in that diary might have explained all these points. In it we might also find, not the name, but we should expect to find some allusion to Miss Johanna Kitchell, of Guilford,
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who became his wife in the same year that he left Harvard. Her age I have not found; but, as her father came in 1637 on the voyage of the "Hector " to which we have alluded, it is possible that their life associations ran back to that early date, and that the boy and girl together kept the fast when the wind blew a gale and all the passengers were confined in the cabins; together joined in the ser- vice of thanksgiving when the wind went down, and heard the ship master and his company when, every night of the two months' voyage, " they set their eight and twelve o'clock watches with sing- ing a psalm, and a prayer that was not read out a book."
We should have found the story of the four years that he spent in Guilford in preaching or teaching, and the joy of his heart would surely have escaped his pen, as he wrote of his call to the high position of master of the colony school at New Haven. This school was opened in the autumn of 1660. Having had a winter's experience with the lads of that town, in the May following the school-master presented to the General Court of New Haven colony the following petitional propositions. After two hundred years, they seem as near an introduction to the man as we can obtain. They evidence that Mr. Peck had the cour- age of his convictions and the full capacity for expressing both courage and convictions. He asks fifteen questions. Most petitioners were content with one or two. He desires that the master shall be assisted with the power and counsel of any of the honored magistrates or elders; that rectores scholæ be appointed and established; that two men
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