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 2
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Mr. and Mrs. W. W. Bull, Plymouth.
J. E. Burbank, Hartford.
Mrs. George Bushnell, New Haven.
Mrs. A. M. Camp, Watertown.
Mrs. George Camp, Middlebury.
Miss Gussie Camp, Middlebury.
G. S. Clark, Middlebury. Mr. and Mrs. S. T. Dayton, Watertown.
H. S. Dayton, Watertown.
Mrs. C. L. Dayton, Watertown.
Dr. and Mrs. Marcus DeForest, Middlebury.
Mrs. Lucy B. Dudley, New York, N. Y.
Mrs. D. E. Eaton, Naugatuck.
W. H. Farnham, Morris. D. W. Fenn, Middlebury.
Mrs. J. A. Freeman, Woodbury.
Mrs. E. C. French, Watertown.
J. B. Fox, Thomaston. Mrs. G. W. Gilbert, Thomaston.
Mrs. Charles Gilbert, Thomaston.
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BI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION.
Mrs. Betsey Gordon, Plymouth. W. G. Hard, Naugatuck. Miss C. M. Hickox, Cheshire. Mrs. E. B. Hillard, Conway, Mass. Samuel Holmes, Montclair, N. J.
W. B. Holmes, Montclair, N. J. Mr. and Mrs. G. B. Hotchkiss, Prospect.
Mrs. Mary R. Hough, Wolcott.
Miss Sarah Hungerford, Watertown.
Rev. J. S. Ives, Stratford. Mrs. S. B. Ives, Cheshire.
Miss Mary Ives, Cheshire.
Mrs. Harriet Lathrop, Providence, R. I.
M. J. Leavenworth, Roxbury.
Rev. and Mrs. Edwin Leonard, Morris.
Mr. and Mrs. E. A. Lum, Seymour.
Mrs. H. G. Marshall, Cromwell.
Mrs. Elizabeth Munson, Westville.
Mr. and Mrs. W. S. Neales, Naugatuck. S. H. Newton, Naugatuck.
Edward Norton and son, Goshen.
F. J. Partree, Watertown.
John Partree, Watertown.
H. C. Peck, Northfield. Mr. and Mrs. S. H. Peck, Watertown
B. W. Pettibone, Winchester.
Mrs. D. F. Pierce, South Britain.
G. B. Preston, Middlebury. Mrs. I. P. Smith, Wolcott.
Miss Louisa H. Thompson, Milford.
Rev. J. P. Trowbridge, Bethlehem. Mrs. Mary Tuttle, Middlebury. Mr. and Mrs. William Tyler, Middlebury. Miss Mamie Tyler, Middlebury. Mrs. J. M. Wardwell, Plymouth. Mrs. Franklin Warren, Naugatuck.
Mrs. Huldah Warren, Plymouth.
Mrs. W. S. Webb, Plymouth. Miss E. B. Wells, Plymouth.
Mrs. C. W. Wolcott, Terryville.
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EXPENSES.
George Wrigold, Winchester. Mrs. J. S. Zelie, Plymouth. Alfredo Zavalo, Nicaragua, C. A.
The expenses of the celebration, as reported by the committee on finance, were as follows :
For printing and postage,
$31.75
" decorations, 45.55
" framing portraits of pastors, ยท 5.45
carting and placing headstones, 2.50
" collation, board, lodging, etc., 53.50
travelling expenses of speakers, 13.00
music (soloist, quartette, etc.), 71.80
stenographer, . II.45
Total, $235.00
The amount required to meet this outlay was collected (from thirty-seven persons) by Messrs. Earl Smith and J. H. Bronson, of the finance com- mittee.
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HISTORICAL DATA.
II.
Some of the following memoranda were included in the four-page program distributed at the several meetings of the bi-centennial celebration. They may serve a useful purpose in furnishing a histori- cal background for the papers and addresses here published.
There were eleven churches organized within the present limits of Connecticut previous to the organization of the church in Farmington. The places and dates of their organization are as fol- lows :
Windsor, 1630 ; Hartford, 1636 ; New Haven, 1639; Milford, 1639 ; Guilford, 1639 ; Stratford, 1640; Stamford, 1641 ; Bran- ford, 1646 ; Saybrook, 1646 ; Fairfield, 1650 ; Norwalk, 1652.
The church in Farmington was an offshoot from the church in Hartford, and was organized on the 13th of October, 1652, twelve years after the settle- ment of the town.
During the interval between the organization of the Farmington church and that of the church in Waterbury, thirteen churches were organized-as follows:
Clinton, 1657; New London, 1660; Norwich, 1660; Middle- town, 1668 ; Hartford Second (the "South Church "), 1670; Stonington, 1674; Wallingford, 1675 ; Haddam, 1675 ; Derby, 1677; Woodbury, 1679 ; Simsbury, 1682 ; Enfield, 1688 ; Wood- stock, 1690.
The church in Waterbury was organized on the 26th of August, 1691. In the three Connecticut colonies twenty-five churches had been established previous to that time,
The Congregational churches derived wholly of in large part from the First church in Waterbury with the dates of organization, are as follows. In some of these the parish limits, from the first extended beyond the bounds of ancient Mattatuck and the meeting-house (as in the case of Oxford and Northfield) may have been situated in another town.
Watertown, formerly "Westbury," June (?), 1739.
Plymouth, formerly "Northbury," May, 1740.
Oxford, in part, January 9th (?), 1745.
Wolcott, formerly "Farmingbury," in part, November 18, 1773 Naugatuck, formerly "Salem Society," February 22nd, 1781. Northfield, in part, January Ist, 1795.
Middlebury, formerly " West Farms," February 10th, 1796. Prospect, formerly " Columbia," in part, May 14th, 1798. Thomaston, formerly "Plymouth Hollow," December 7, 1837. Terryville, January 2nd, 1838.
Waterbury, Second, April 4th, 1852.
Eagle Rock (Reynolds Bridge, Thomaston), October 29, 1879 .*
Of these churches, six (namely, Watertown Oxford, Northfield, Wolcott, Middlebury and Pros- pect) are situated in farming communities and have suffered from the transition from an agricul- tural to a manufacturing state through which Connecticut has passed during the present century. The church in Plymouth belongs perhaps to the same class. The membership of these seven churches on the Ist of January, 1891, numbered 739 (in 471 families). At the same date the member- ship of the other six numbered 2169. The total membership (that is, of enrolled communicants) was 2908 ; the whole number of families, 2446.
In addition to the two Congregational churches in Waterbury, there are within the present limits
* A Swedish Congregational church was organized in Thomaston, October 27, 1891.
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HISTORICAL DATA.
of the town two Protestant Episcopal, four Metho- dist Episcopal, a Baptist, a German Lutheran, an Adventist, an African Methodist and four Roman Catholic churches. There are also several denomi- national and " union " chapels at which religious services are statedly held.
The First church has had fourteen pastors, besides several ministers who have served as pastors for short periods. Their names and the dates of their settlement and dismission are as follows :
Jeremiah Peck, 1691 (ministry began 1689) to 1699.
John Southmayd, 1705 to 1739.
Mark Leavenworth, 1740 to 1797.
Edward Porter, 1795 to 1798.
Holland Weeks, 1799 to 1806.
Luke Wood, 1808 to 1817.
Daniel Crane, 1821 to 1825.
Joel R. Arnold, 1831 to 1836.
Henry N. Day, 1836 to 1840.
David Root, 1841 to 1844.
Henry B. Elliot, 1845 to 1851.
William W. Woodworth, 1852 to 1858.
George Bushnell, 1858 to 1865.
Joseph Anderson, since February 12th, 1865.
The Rev. Dr. Asahel Nettleton served as preacher in 1815 and 1816, during the pastorate of Mr. Wood. The Rev. Henry Benedict was acting pastor in 1826 and 1827, and the Rev. Jason Atwater in 1829 and 1830. The only ex-pastors now living are Dr. Elliot and Dr. Bushnell.
On the 26th of August, 1891, the occurrence of the two hundredth birthday of the First church was publicly recognized in the "Waterbury American," in an appropriate article bearing the well-known
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HISTORICAL DATA.
initials of Miss Sarah J. Prichard. As a part of the record of the celebration-to say nothing of its intrinsic interest-it seems proper to reproduce it here.
THE BI-CENTENNIAL OF THE FIRST CHURCH IN WATERBURY.
Two hundred years ago, this day, was organized the First church of Christ in Waterbury. To-day let every Protestant church within the ancient township, whether Congregational, Protestant Episcopal, Methodist Episcopal or Baptist ; whether in Waterbury, in Plymouth, in Thomaston, in Watertown, in Naugatuck, in Prospect, in Wolcott, in Middlebury or in Oxford, look with tender and affectionate regard toward the old First church ; for however true to heaven their spires may point, they one and all point thither by the way of the church that was organized on the 26th of August, 1691.
Here, for more than fifty years, and here alone, came every inhabitant, every man, woman and child, to worship. Hither wended their way every Andrews or Andrus, every Barnes and Bronson, every Carpenter, Carrington and Clark; every Gaylord, Gridley, Hancox, Hickox, Hopkins and Judd, and every Porter, Richards, Richardson, Scott, Scovill, Standly and Upson; and even the Warners and the Weltons were good and staunch Congregationalists for two generations ; the first adherent to the Church of England in the township having migrated hither from New Haven when the town was more than two-score years old-" Bishop" James Brown.
It is for this and other reasons that the coming celebration of the organization of this our mother church (by august per- mission of the General Court) should be an occasion of deep and tender interest not only to the churches within the borders of the original township which still bear the family church- name of Congregationalist, but to all the descendants of the men and women who had part in it.
It was on March 21st, 1689, that the proprietors agreed to be at the expense of transporting the Rev. Jeremiah Peck and his family and cattle from Greenwich to Waterbury. We there- fore may conclude that he had been with the people nearly, if not quite, two years before the formation of the church and
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HISTORICAL DATA.
his ordination. During this time Mr. Peck could not have per- formed the functions of an ordained minister of the church, notwithstanding former ordinations ; hence children were car- ried for baptism to the church at Farmington.
It does not satisfactorily appear that the Rev. Jeremiah Peck ever had a meeting house to officiate in, and we are led, in our thoughts of that day, up to the minister's house, that stood hard by St. John's church and on the present site of Mrs. John C. Booth's residence, in the timbers of which, it is thought, are mingled portions of that house, built with pious care by the first men of Waterbury for the minister who should come to dwell with them ; and that is, in all probability, the place where the organization of the church took place.
It was the great event of that period to the young, almost infant, town of Waterbury. In its results and outgrowths it has continued to be the most important event that ever oc- curred within the town, and it is due to the past and the pres- ent alike that the celebration should be warmly and cordially participated in by every church and town within the range of ancient Waterbury.
August 26th, 1891.
S. J. P.
I.
THE FIRST CHURCH IN WATERBURY : AN HISTORICAL SURVEY.
THE FIRST CHURCH IN WATERBURY : AN HISTORICAL SURVEY.
BY THE REV. JOSEPH ANDERSON, D. D.
We shall soon be celebrating the four hundredth anniversary of the discovery of America. The organization of the First church in Waterbury took place just midway between that event and the present time. A hundred and twenty-eight years had elapsed, after Columbus first set foot in the new world, before the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth; a hundred and forty-eight years, before the settlement of Farmington took place, and a hundred and eighty-five years before the settle- ment of Mattatuck. Nine years more passed by before Mattatuck was incorporated as a town and called Waterbury, and five more were added before the Rev. Jeremiah Peck and his townsmen sought and obtained permission to "embody in church estate."
During this long period, while most of North America remained an unbroken wilderness, what had the civilized world been doing? And what was it doing in 1691 ?
The invention of printing, of the mariner's com- pass, and of gunpowder, had already taken place at the time of the discovery, and with the aid of these the movement known as the Renaissance was stead- ily advancing toward a grand culmination. The Renaissance was not only a revival of learning, it was a new birth of art and science; it brought in a
2
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THE FIRST CHURCH IN WATERBURY :
new era in politics and religion. Just twenty-five years after Columbus's first voyage, Luther nailed his " theses" to the church door of Wittemberg, and the Protestant Reformation was begun. In 1526 Tyndal's English New Testament was published, and by this time Protestantism was making rapid headway in the countries of northern Europe. In southern Europe the ancient church of Rome not only held its own; it gave new and more explicit expression to its doctrines and laws through the Council of Trent, and through the labors of the Society of Jesus reached out into all the known world in aggressive missionary effort. The national antagonisms produced by the breaking up of the religious unity of Europe led on, in the course of a century, to the Thirty Years' war. This was ter- minated in 1648 by the peace of Westphalia, in which the political rights of the reformed churches and the Protestant princes of Europe were at length recognized.
In England the break with the ancient church was at first a matter of royal caprice; but the people were ready for a change, and accepted the Protestant doctrines in a very serious way. The severe measures of Queen Mary failed to bring the nation back to Rome, and under Elizabeth, in 1570, the final rupture with the Roman church took place. A great diversity of views, however, had been developed among the English Protestants, and when Elizabeth attempted to compel uniformity, then Puritanism began to take visible form. Among the non-conformists there were several grades of Puritans, some of them holding much more radical views in regard to church government than others.
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AN HISTORICAL SURVEY.
Soon after the ascension of James I., some of these sought escape from persecution by removing to Holland, and afterwards to America. Others, of a less radical type, emigrated directly from England to Massachusetts Bay in 1628 and 1630, and within ten years from this twenty thousand Englishmen had taken up their abode in New England. Among these were the men who settled Hartford and Farmington.
The year 1640, in which a settlement at Farming- ton was begun, was the year when the Long Parlia- ment began its sessions. From that time the fortunes of Puritanism in the mother country were strangely varied. In the Revolution under Crom- well, and in the Commonwealth, independency triumphed; but this was only until 1660. Under the reign of Charles II. and James II., Puritanism of every kind was at a disadvantage, and the Puritan colonies of New England had to bear their share of hardships. From 1662 onward, for twenty- five years, Massachusetts contended against the crown. The attempt was made to wrest from the colonies their charters and treat them as conquered territories. In 1686 James II. sent over Sir Edmund Andros to act as governor-general of New England. The following year, Connecticut having refused to recognize his authority, he visited Hartford to assert it personally. In an interview with the chief men of the colony, the charter of Connecticut was brought into the room; but the lights were sud- denly extinguished, and when they were lighted again the charter was not to be found. In the in- terval (so the story goes) it had been hidden away in a hollow oak. It is difficult to say what the
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THE FIRST CHURCH IN WATERBURY:
course of things in New England would have been, had not another revolution taken place in England. When the news of the landing of William of Orange at Torbay reached Boston, Governor Andros was immediately imprisoned, and the General Court resumed its sessions (May, 1689) as under the old charter. In Connecticut the old charter was again brought forth, and a new era in the colonial history was entered upon.
This year 1689-in which William and Mary ascended the throne, and the grand European Alliance was formed, in which England was included-was the year the Rev. Jeremiah Peck began to preach in Waterbury, the settlement being then some twelve years old. I do not know that the plodding planters of Mattatuck kept much trace of the great events beyond sea, but, as you perceive, these events were not without signifi. cance even for them, here on the edge of the wilderness. In the chronological annals prefixed to Green's "Short History of the English People," the section which begins with the year 1689 is entitled, " Modern England." By aid of these events at which we have been glancing, and such as these, the planters of Mattatuck had been lifted into a new era of the world's history. They belong not to the medieval time, but to our time. At this date, the authorized version of the Bible had been in circulation eighty years; Shakespeare had been seventy-five years dead and Milton seventeen; New- ton's "Principia" had seen the light. So that we must not look upon these ancestors as very ancient. If from what we know of them they seem so to us, perhaps it is because they were apparently so far
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AN HISTORICAL SURVEY.
out of the current of the world's grand events, leading a life which looked like a mere episode in the world's broad history. But they were not out of the current; they were in fact giving it direc- tion.
The good people who settled Farmington were members of the church in Hartford, of which the eminent Thomas Hooker was the pastor. The Farmington church was organized in 1652, and its first pastor was Mr. Hooker's son-in-law, and the second his son Samuel, who ministered there from 1661 to 1697. It was under the ministry of these two men that the proprietors of Waterbury grew up to manhood and received their religious educa- tion. Those who were over forty-five years of age at the time of the settlement of Mattatuck must have been born in England ; those who were under thirty-seven were probably natives of Farmington. It is interesting, therefore, to know that the Rev. Samuel Hooker was a minister worthy of his noble parentage. He is described as an "animated and pious divine." It is said, too, that he was "an excellent preacher, his composition good, his address pathetic, warm and engaging." He had "three things to do with his sermons before he delivered them in public -- to write them, commit them unto his memory and get them into his heart." This was a good ministry under which to grow up, and the influence of the church itself was doubtless in harmony with that of its pastor. Ex-President Porter, describing the life of the Farmington settlers, says :
The Sabbath was the great and central day of the week. As the drum beat its wonted and pleasant sound of invitation,
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THE FIRST CHURCH IN WATERBURY :
they resorted to the house of worship with cheerful steps, to be roused or comforted by the fervent Hooker. .
. From the house of God they return at evening, to spend the remain- ing hours of sacred rest in joyful reflection upon the truth there heard, doubly grateful for a church such as they loved, though it were in the wilderness. There they instruct their children with strict and judicious care, and close the day by committing themselves and theirs to the care of the Almighty.
. Day by day through the week the instruction of the children is prosecuted in patriarchal simplicity and with patriarchal faithfulness. The sacred presence of parental restraint follows the child wherever he goes. He enters not a door where there is not the same subduing influence ; while law with its majestic presence fills the very atmosphere in which he breathes .*
If under such training as this the settlers of Matta- tuck had failed to grow up into virtuous and noble men and women, who could retain his faith in the value of Christian nurture?
It does not appear that a large proportion of these settlers-of the men, at any rate-were church members; but they could not come forth from such an atmosphere as that in which they had lived so long-in fact, they could not be true sons of the Puritans-and not cherish the utmost respect for religion, and an earnest desire to make full provision for the religious wants of the new community. And such provision was made. By a requirement in the original articles, three "pro- prieties " of one hundred and fifty pounds each were secured for "public and pious uses." By a subsequent vote of the town one of these was set apart for the minister, who was allowed a "larger interest " than any other man in the community
* Pp. 36, 37 of " A Historical Discourse in Commemoration of the Original Settlement at Farmington in 1640. By Noah Porter, Jr. Hartford, 1841."
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AN HISTORICAL SURVEY.
But in addition to this the committee of the settle- ment set apart in 1679 "a house lot of two acres" and other pieces of land in different parts of the town, amounting in all to more than twenty acres, to " be and remain for the occupation and improve- ment of the minister of said town forever."
That so much should have been done for the maintenance of religion, and that at the same time the organization of a church should be delayed for fourteen years, is to be explained by various con- siderations. For some time the settlement was unfortunate and unpromising. The community did not grow as the proprietors had hoped, and within nine or ten years from its foundation some of the foremost men began to remove from it. In fact, for thirty-five years the settlers struggled on, amidst Indian wars, sicknesses and floods, and at the end were scarcely more in number than during the first eight years of the settlement. But this is not all. There were religious conditions which may have led to a postponement of action. The first half century of New England history had wit- nessed a great change in the religious life of the people. The early immigrants were almost with- out exception church members, and conspicuous for their Puritan piety. But, notwithstanding the rigid training already alluded to, the children did not uniformly grow up pious, while among the later immigrants there was greater diversity of beliefs and practices than among those who came first. To secure political rights, which in all the colonies were somewhat dependent on church mem- bership, compromises were resorted to, such as the " half-way covenant "; the number of actual church
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THE FIRST CHURCH IN WATERBURY :
members diminished (at least relatively), and for- malism in the churches took the place of the solemn and substantial piety of the earlier period. The decline of religion became more marked from the time of King Philip's war, which was contem- poraneous with the first settlement of Mattatuck, and aroused so much anxiety that the General Court called upon the ministers of the colony to take special pains to instruct the people in the duties of religion and to stir up and awaken them to repentance and a reformation of manners. As might have been expected, a day of fasting and prayer was appointed. But the General Court of Massachusetts went still further, and (in 1679) called together a synod of the churches to consider " what are the evils that have provoked the Lord to bring his judgments on New England, and what is to be done that these evils may be reformed." The report of the committee appointed to frame an answer to these queries speaks of the neglect of church-fellowship, indifference to bap- tism, the spread of profaneness, the desecration of the Sabbath, the want of family discipline, law- suits, promise-breaking, strivings after worldly gain, intemperance in bodily enjoyments, immod- est apparel and irreverent behavior and inattention
in the house of God during public worship. " In Scripture we read of but one man," says the com- mittee, solemnly, "that slept at a sermon, and that sin had like to have cost him his life : Acts xx. 9."
It was in such a period as this (and the picture of it is as lurid as if it had been painted two hundred years later) that the colony from Farmington set- tled in the valley of the Naugatuck. That these
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AN HISTORICAL SURVEY.
people should have made the necessary material preparations for the establishment of religion and the ministry among them was a matter of course, perhaps a matter of compulsion; but it did not follow that the organization of a church must immediately take place.
The Rev. Jeremiah Peck had been a resident of Waterbury for more than two years before the first step toward a formal organization of a church was taken, by applying to the General Court for per- mission to "embody. " "We, at least some of, the inhabitants of Waterbury, being by the goodness of God inclined and desirous to promote the concerns of the kingdom of Christ in this place by coming into church order, . . humbly request the consent of the General Court now assembling, that we may, as God shall give us cause and assistance, proceed to the gathering of a Congregational church in this place." So ran the application, written by Mr. Peck's somewhat pedantic pen; and the response was as hearty as could have been wished: "This Court do freely grant them their request, and shall freely encourage them in their beginnings, and desire the Lord to give them good success therein." This was at the May session, 1691. It appears from a letter from Mr. Peck's successor, the Rev. John Southmayd, to the Rev. Thomas Prince, of Boston, that the church was organized and Mr. Peck installed as its pastor on the 26th of August, follow- ing. At that date the churches within the present limits of Connecticut numbered twenty-five.
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