USA > Connecticut > Litchfield County > Harwinton > The history of Harwinton, Connecticut > Part 14
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*History of Newbury, Ms.
+N. E. Hist. Gen. Reg., Jan., 1850.
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also instructed "to have respect to but one single poll in every man s rate, and that rate and age be the two things observed only; and as for the dignity of the seats, the table and the fore seats are accounted to be the two highest; the front gallery is accounted, in dignity, equal to the second and third seats in the body of the meeting house; and the side gallery is accounted equal to the fourth and fifth seats in the body of the meeting house."" At Norfolk, Ct., the custom of 'seating the meeting house' is still retained. The writer of this Note who never, ex- cept in Harwinton, had witnessed a 'dignifying of seats' in houses ap- propriated to public worship, has often heard as well as seen elsewhere, so lately as, in Royalston, Ms., in 1839, a custom not known in Harwin- ton-seats of churches made to revolve on hinges and, at the close of prayer, 'slammed down,' one after another in irregular succession, so as to 'make report ' like the discharge of muskets by a regiment of newly recruited militia. Happy that such things are now gone ; and happier when, with visible disorders, whatever works unseen to mar the profit- ableness of religious services, shall as thoroughly be abolished.
NOTE BB., PAGE 53, 82.
Pews.
Not unfrequently were pews absent from the New England Churches of former days. Sometimes permission to erect a pew, sometimes one already erected, was by a congregation granted to a dignitary or bene- factor in token of honor or gratitude. Thus at Upper Beverly (, Pre- cinct of Salem and Beverly), Ms., a gentleman having at his own charge built a porch and placed within it "the women's entrance to the gallery," a flight of stairs which before had stood in the audience room; the par- ish allowed him to set up a pew in the said room.
The same parish having, in 1753, received the gift of a bell, "Voted, that where- as Robert Hooper, Jr., Esq., of Marblehead, hath by his generosity and donation greatly obliged this precinct in presenting us with a bell on his own cost and charge, for ye use of ye sd. precinct: In consideration whereof, Voted, that this precinct do grant and freely give unto ye sd. Robert Hooper, Esq., his heirs and assigns, the Pew at the southerly corner of our Public Meeting House, situate between Mr. Wm. Porter's and Deacon Cresey's pew."+ At Pomfret, in this State, individuals, in 1714, erected pews for themselves. In Framingham, Ms., 1702, "Jno. Jaquish was permitted to build a pew behind the men's seats, on condition of taking care of the meetinghouse for 7 years. Jeremiah Pike, also, had the same privileges."§
What in the present day seems more remarkable is that, to some ex- tent, pews in New England places of worship had, like 'boxes' in thea- ters, 'private entrances.' At Boston, Ms., at the meeting of a parish, relative to erecting a house for worship, 1677, they by way of precau-
*History of Framingham [, Ms].
+Stone's Lecture on the History of the Second Parish in Beverly [, Ms].
+" Every man made his own, to box up himself and [his] family."-Rev. D. Hunt's Thanksgiving Discourse, at Pomfret, Ct ..
§History of Framingham [, Ms],
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tion agreed, that "no pew was to be built with a door into the street."* At Framingham, Ms., to the permission accorded, as above mentioned, to Jeremiah Pike, there was added : "provided he cuts a door, to come into it, through the end of the meeting house." This sort of liberty in that place passed, as was natural, so rapidly into a sort of licentiousness that, nine or ten years afterwards, 1711-12, the Town chose a com- mittee
· ... to regulate those disorders in our publique meetinghouse;" and "declared by the sign manual of the Inhabitants of Framingham, that the cutting off of seats in the meetinghouse, and also the cutting of Holes through the walls of the aforesaid meetinghouse, either for doors or windows, or on what pretence soever, without li- cence for the same obtained of the town; and also the Building or enlarging of Pews in the said meeting house, without the said Towns License, first for the same obtained, are disorders to be regulated by the aforesaid committee.t
Pews, as they used to be in Harwinton and as elsewhere they still may be found, were, according to a style which the forefathers had across the sea been inured to, square enclosures formed by four tall walls of wainscot work against which were arranged seats that, in some cases were firmly nailed, in others made to lift up by hinges, upon their props. Chairs were placed in them, additionally. Impounded in those awkward pens of a grotesquely uncouth and false 'dignity,' children, when either tired or mischievous, could sleep or take pastime securely; while their seniors, as certain to be tired with sitting against a perpendicular board or harder surface as high as, if not higher than, their heads,-or in pref- erence to sitting, as perforce many of them must sit, with their backs or sides towards the preacher, contorting themselves, in order to face him, into postures never voluntarily in other places assumed,-might oftener think than say, of the pew side, 'Thou " wall of partition between us;"' and might thus gymnastically solve, as best they could, the problem, how to reconcile with their circumstances of constraint the apostle's averment : "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty."
NOTE CC., PAGE 55. ' Sabbath-day Houses.'
Near to the Church edifice were put up subsidiary constructions. At a Town Meeting, held 3 Dec., 1754, it was
Uoted that any of the Inhabitants of the town of Harwinton Shall have the Lib- erty to build Houses for their Comfort on the Saboth between meetings and houses for to Shelter their horses under on the Saboth Day Sum whare Neere to the meet- ing houses allways provided thay Dont block up the highway
The 'Houses for their Comfort' were sometimes called 'Noon Houses ;' generally, 'Sabbath-day Houses.' Such, probably a Connect- icut invention, there formerly were in Branford, Durham, Guilford, Go- shen, Litchfield, Salisbury, Waterbury, &c. An 'account rendered ' of
*Snow's History of Boston [, Ms].
+History of Framingham [, Ms].
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such structures by Rev. Grant Powers, in his Centennial Address at Goshen, 1838, which has with variations been followed by Prof. William C. Fowler, in his Dedication Sermon at (South) Durham, 1847, and by Payne Kenyon Kilbourne, Esq., in his History of Litchfield, 1859 ; may, more briefly, be followed here. Built, for the most part, at the joint ex- pense of two or more families, a 'Sabbath-day House' comprised, ordi- narily, two rooms, each of them, ten or twelve feet square, having a fire-place that opened into a chimney set in the middle of the building. In these rooms were, with fuel ready for 'making a quick fire,' some chairs, a table, plates, dishes, and utensils for warming food. They also contained devotional books. In the winter, a family, leaving their dwel- ling-house early on Lord's-day, came to their 'Sabbath-day House,' and having, by a genial blaze which they made there, restored the heat which in reaching it they had lost, were better fitted to withstand the rigorous air that they had to encounter during the 'morning services ' in a Church where, save in a foot-stove, no fire was found. In the same place they, at noon, took a repast, discussed the sermon they had heard, read from the Bible or from some other volume which they prized, sung devotion- ally, and offered prayer. From the same place, their warmth again re- newed there after the Sabbath's public services had closed, they comfort- ably returned to their home.
NOTE DD., PAGES 57, 61, 70, 71, 81.
Preachers, in Harwinton, who did not become Pastors there.
Rev. Timothy Woodbridge, a graduate of Yale College, 1732, 1. tutor of the same, 1737-39, the 'Mr. Timo. Woodbridge,' probably, whom a Committee at New Hartford were directed to invite to preach at that place, 1738, was ordained, 1740, as pastor (, colleague with Rev. William Williams,) of the Cong. Church at Hatfield, Ms., where he died, in the pastoral office, 3 June, 1770, in the 58th year of his age. He was a son of Rev. Timothy Woodbridge, of Simsbury, and a grand- son of Rev. Timothy Woodbridge, of Hartford. The Wyllys and the . Woodbridge families of Hartford were united by marriage bonds, and both families, as the records show, held lands, 1732-38, in Harwinton.
2. Rev. David Ely, DD., a graduate of Yale College, 1769, fellow of the same, 1788-1816, secretary of the same, 1793-1815, was or- dained pastor of the Cong. Church in Huntington, 1780. He deceased, 1816.
3. Rev. Robert Hubbard, born at Middletown, a graduate of Yale College, 1769, was ordained the first pastor of the Cong. Church in Shelburne, Ms., 20 Oct., 1773, while holding which relation he died, at his native place, 2 Nov., 1788, aged 45.
4. Rev. Caleb Alexander, born at Northfield, Ms., 22 July, 1755, a graduate of Yale College, 1777, ordained pastor at New Marlborough. Ms., 28 Feb., 1781, dismissed thence, 28 June, 1782, installed pastor of the First Congregational Church at Mendon, Ms., 23 March, 1786, dismissed from said Church, 13 June, 1791, but retained by the First Parish (connected with that Church) until 7 Dec., 1802, when, with the
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concurrence of the Church, he was dismissed from ministerial relations there ; removed, about 1803, to Fairfield, Herkimer Co., N. Y., in which place, Principal of an Academy that he sought to elevate into a College, he erected the buildings since occupied by a Medical School. He died, the Preceptor of an Academy, at Onondaga Hollow, Onondaga Co., N. Y., 12 April, 1828. A man of talents and a good theologian, as well as a classical scholar, he prepared and published, besides several occa- sional Sermons : An Essay on the Deity of Jesus Christ, with Strictures on Emelyn, an English writer; an Introduction to Making Latin ; a Greek Grammar ; an English Grammar; Elements of English Gram- mar; a Spelling Book; a New and Complete System of Arithmetic; a Latin Grammar; a Translation of the Works of Virgil ; the Columbian Dictionary ; all previously to 1804 .- Blake's Hist. of Mendon, in Bar- ber's Hist. Collec. of Mass .; Packard's Hist. of Churches and Ministers in Franklin Co., Ms .; Catalogue of All the Books Printed in the Uni- ted States, Boston, Jan., 1804.
5. Rev. Lemuel Tyler, a native of Branford, a graduate of Yale College, 1780, was ordained pastor of the Cong. Church in Preston, 1787, where he deceased in 1810.
6. Rev. William Frederick Rowland, born at Plainfield, Ct., 1761, a graduate of Dartmouth College, 1784, was ordained pastor of the First Cong. Church in Exeter, N. H., 2 June, 1790, dismissed thence, 5 Dec., 1828, and died there, 10 June, 1843. Rev. Henry Augustus Rowland, born at Providence, R. I., 13 Jan., 1764, a graduate of Dartmouth Col- lege, 1785, was ordained pastor of the Cong. Church in Windsor, Ct., 5 May, 1790, and died there 28 Nov., 1835. Which of these sons of Rev. David Sherman Rowland, of Plainfield and of Windsor, is referred to, in the quotation (, on p. 71,) hereinabove given, is not clear. The lat- ter seems to be the one intended.
7. Rev. Aaron Cook Collins, born at (North) Guilford, 4 May, 1762, a graduate of Yale College, 1786, approved, as a candidate for the min- istry, by the New Haven East Association, 29 May, 1787, was pastor of a Cong. or Pres. Church at East Bloomfield, N. Y., where he de- ceased, 1830.
8. Rev. Calvin White, a graduate of Yale College, 1786, died 1853.
9. Rev. William James Breed, a graduate of Yale College, 1831, ordained pastor of Cong. Church, Nantucket, Ms., afterward a pastor at Cincinnati, O., and at Providence, R. I., was installed pastor of the Cong. Church in Southborough, Ms., 23 June, 1858.
10. . Rev. Aaron Church, born at Amherst, Ms., and,-as was his twin brother, Rev. Moses Church,-a graduate of Middlebury College, 1822, had, before his coming to Harwinton, been a pastor somewhere in Maine.
NOTE EE., PAGE 61. Rev. Mr. Bartholomew's Grave.
A slab of gneissic stone, in the ancient grave-yard, Harwinton Cen- ter, presents an inscription as follows :
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Here lies the Body of the Revª Andrew Bartholomew The 1' pastor of the church of christ in harwinton who With filial regard for the Glory of god studiously Labored in the vineyard of christ 38 years A lover of piety peace and good order and zealous for the faith he died March the 6th AD
1776 in the 63ª year of his age
NOTE FF., PAGE 64. The Half-way Covenant.
The early Churches in New England, all of them, in respect to gov- ernment, Congregational, and, in respect to doctrine, evangelical, be- lieved that only such persons as give credible evidence of possessing scriptural piety are qualified to be members of Churches. They accord- ingly received into membership no persons who, in their judgment, were destitute of that qualification. The views of doctrine and principles of practice, held by those Churches, are summarily set forth in the "Plat- form of Church Discipline, gathered out of the Word of God, and agreed upon by the Elders and Messengers of the Churches assembled in the Synod at Cambridge, in New England," "the 8th Month, Anno 1648." That work, defining "the matter of the visible church," "in respect of quality," says : "The matter of a visible church are saints by calling. By saints, we under- stand, Such as have not only attained the knowledge of the principles of re- ligion, but also do together with the profession of their faith and repent- ance, walk in blameless obedience to the word, so as that in charitable discretion they may be accounted saints by calling, though perhaps some or more of them be unsound." A preface to the work goes largely into a defence both of this definition itself and of the Churches as then con- forming their practice to the principle it declares. The ministers with delegates of the Churches in the Connecticut and New Haven Colonies were present and united in the formation and the adoption of that Plat- form. This standard, however, was not maintained. The churches so rapidly declined from it that, in a Synod held at Boston, 1662, it was decided that persons, baptized in infancy, "understanding the doctrine of faith, and publicly professing their assent thereunto, not scandalous in life, and solemnly owning the covenant before the church, wherein they give up themselves and their children to the Lord, and subject themselves to the government of Christ in the church, their children are to be baptized." Here was an admission that certain privileges pertain- ing to those regarded as credibly regenerate should be extended to such
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as, while "professing their asent" to the belief and their adoption of the covenant of a Church, were without any evidence of being regenerate and were therefore not admitted to participation in the Lord's Supper. Dr. Bellamy, referring to this Synod as held "when the first generation were generally dead," says that its members " professed to believe that none had a right to the seals [of 'the covenant of grace,' viz., baptism and the Lord's Supper, ] for themselves, or their children, but true believ- ers, and real saints : however, they thought a less degree of grace would qualify for one ordinance than for the other. And on this principle the half- way practice was introduced." It has, with less propriety, been called 'the half-way covenant system.' There was published, in 1710, " A Confession of Faith, owned and consented to by the Elders and Messengers of the Churches in the Colony of Connecticut, in New Eng- land, assembled by Delegation at Saybrook, September 9, 1708;" with " The Heads of Agreement, assented to by the United Ministers, formerly called Presbyterian and Congregational: and also, Articles, for the adminis- tration of Church Discipline, unanimously agreed upon, and consented to, by the Elders and Messengers of the Churches of the Colony of Connecti- cut, in New England, assembled by Delegation, at Saybrook, Sept. 9th, 1708." Among the "Heads of Agreement " are the following: "II. We agree. that particular societies of visible saints, who under Christ their head, are statedly joined together, for ordinary communion with one another in all the ordinances of Christ, are particular churches, and are to be owned by each other, as instituted churches of Christ, though differing in apprehensions and practice in some lesser things." "III. That none shall be admitted as members, in order to communion in all the special ordinances of the Gospel, but such persons as are knowing and sound in the fundamental doctrine of the Christian religion ; without scandal in their lives ; and, to a judgment regulated by the word of God, are persons of visible holiness and honesty ; credibly professing cordial subjection to Jesus Christ." Yet in Connecticut, as in other por- tions of New England, the new practice continued. Much opposition was made to it, so that in some Churches it was never received; still it gained so much ground as to be general. In the middle of the last cell- tury there was manifest a disposition to return to 'the old paths.' This tendency was set forward and augmented by the elder President Ed- wards, pastor of the Church at Northampton, Ms., whose grandfather, predecessor to President Edwards in that place, Rev. Solomon Stoddard, a gentleman of great excellence and ability, had, in various ways, been foremost in upholding the innovation. Soon after the beginning of the present century, the half-way covenant practice was at an end. It had existed about one hundred and fifty years. Dr. Trumbull affirms that, so early as 1655, "there was a strong party, in the Colony of Connecti- cut, who were for admitting all persons of a regular life to full commu- nion in the churches, upon their making a profession of the Christian re- ligion, without any enquiry [made of them] with respect to a change of heart ; and for treating all baptized persons as members of the church. [Dr. Bellamy represents this to have been Rev. Mr. Stoddard's method, at Northampton, Ms.] Some carried the affair still further, and insist-
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ed, that all persons, who had been members of churches in England, or · had been members of regular ecclesiastical parishes there, and supported the public worship, should be allowed to enjoy the privileges of mem- bers in full communion in the churches of Connecticut. They also in- sisted, that all baptized persons, upon owning the covenant, as it was called, should have their children baptized, though they [such owners of the covenant] came not to the Lord's table." He assigns, as the ori- gin of the party, that the descendants of the planters of the Colony, along with later immigrants hither, " wished for the honors and privi- leges of church members for themselves, and baptism for their children ; but they were not persuaded that they were regenerated, and knew not how to comply with the rigid terms of the congregational churches." The half-way practice was the expedient resorted to, to quiet the uneasi- ness of such persons. It had the odious nature and seeds of evil, though when it was devised these were not seen, which attach to such meas- ures as, in political concerns, men who deemed themselves sagacious have found to be quite wretched things. The results of the practice were bad. It crippled the power of the Churches regarding discipline. Doc- trinal errors and immoralities in life were less easily reproved. It facili- tated the entrance into the Churches and into their ministry of irreli- gious, insincere, ambitious men, having worldly rather than spiritual minds. It was a chief source, among the New England Churches, as well of what first came in upon them as (in name) Arminianism, (in fact) a comparative carelessness for both the doctrines and the duties pe- culiar to Christianity, as of what afterwards has been known as Unita- rianism.
As illustrating a state of things once existing in this vicinity, and the contest while Mr. Perry was pastor here, the acts on record of a certain Town near this may be given. The dates of these are 1769, 1770.
Voted, that we think the sealing ordinances [, Baptism and the Lord's Supper,] are equally sacred, and any person that is qualified for one is qualified for both.
Voted, that we approve of the church vote, viz: That conversion should not be a term of admission for Church communion.
Rev. Ebenezer Booge, pastor of the Second Church in Avon, 1751- 66, accustomed to make record at home of occurrences incidental to his labors beyond his own parish, made in his journal the minute following. It was well said of it: "A slighter clew than this has often revealed much of [one's] character."
Dec. the 22d 1754, Samuel Mills of West Symsbury [, Canton], was admitted into the church a half-member-I do'n't know what! may-be a covenantee-for I think some call 'em so.
NOTE GG., PAGE 68, 74. The Separatists.
The 'Separate' Churches were mainly composed of seceders from Congregational Churches. The persons who composed them did not
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like 'the half-way covenant ' practice, and they approved, as means for promoting religion and exhibiting its nature and excellence, various sen- timents and measures which many of the best men in the Congregational ' Churches deemed to be of questionable propriety or clearly wrong. How came there to be a Church of Separatists in Harwinton ? and how came it in Harwinton at just the time in which it appears? If its members disliked 'the half-way covenant ' practice, did not both Mr. Perry and the majority of the Church under his care dislike the same practice? If the former were, as those elsewhere affiliated with them claimed to be in an especial degree, in favor of religious advancement and in readiness to endure trials for that cause, were not the latter as much so ? The new congregation may have supposed that they had a fair prospect be- fore them of absorbing the old one.
The Separatists appear to have been, as a body, good men whose first errors, the result chiefly of ignorance, were confirmed and whose later ones were multiplied by the persecution, too frequently directed by per- verting the forms of justice into "instruments of cruelty," against them. When they were met in a different spirit, they were not intractable. When they ceased to be persecuted, their peculiarities began to pass away.
Besides this in Harwinton there were in Connecticut 'Separate' Churches at Bloomfield (then Poquonnuck parish in Windsor), Canter- bury, Colchester, Enfield, Groton, Haddam, Killingly, Lisbon, Lyme, Mansfield, Middletown, New London, Norwich, Plainfield, Preston, Stonington, Suffield, Torrington, Voluntown, Wallingford, Wethersfield, Windham, Windsor; and, perhaps, others. A few Churches of the same denomination were in Massachusetts, especially in its south-eastern portion ; and some on Long Island, N. Y. Losing in time those pecu- liar 'views' and especially those peculiar 'feelings' which made and kept them a distinct communion, part of them became regular Congre- gationalists again, the rest Baptists. Backus' History of the Baptists, and Tracy's History of the Great Awakening, treat of the Separatists ; as does an Article in the New Englander, May, 1853. Dr. Prime, in his History of Long Island, says that Riverhead (, Southold), L. I., " was a principal seat of those churches which were organized in affinity with the Separate Churches of New England. Both here and there they re- mained for many years, in a strictly independent form. But in process of time those churches in Connecticut, with their ministers, formed an ecclesiastical organization under the style of the " Strict Congregational Convention of Connecticut ;" and, in 1781, they published a " Confession of Faith and Form of Government," which was republished on Long Island in 1823. With this they gave "a brief history of their separa- tion from the Standing Order," an account of the organization of their first church, and the ordination of its first minister. In the same pam- phlet, they set forth the reasons of their separation, and " some of the errors that attended " that event."
Contrary to what has usually happened in sectarian nomenclature, the name by which these religionists were known appears to have been cho- sen by themselves. It has the merit of accurately describing them. Yet
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their enemies could hardly have found for them one that is connected with more odious associations. It by derivation imports the same as does,-the worst term which their enemies applied to them,-the (radi- cally same) word Pharisees. Claiming, as they did, to possess, in a de- gree beyond that of their contemporaries, the gifts, as it were a monop- oly, of the Divine Spirit; they were not wary in forgetting the classifica- tion made by an apostle : "These be they who separate themselves, sen- sual, having NOT the Spirit."
NOTE HH., PAGE 73, 79. Church Records.
The doings of the Congregational Church in Harwinton, with much else that illustrates its condition, have, for most of the time since the be- ginning of Dr. Pierce's pastorate, been recorded pretty fully. Plainly written, they are as readable as they are accessible.
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