USA > Connecticut > The history of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut, Vol. I > Part 17
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though New Haven is a pleasant situation, and would be quite agreeable to me, I should, upon my own ac- count, be content to go to Rye; and if, all things con- sidered, the Society shall order me there, I shall be well suited. But then, I should be concerned for the Church in New Haven, which, in the latter part of Mr. Punderson's time there, was really in a pining and languishing state; and should he return to them again, (though he obtains a good character, and is really a valuable man,) I fear he would have the mor- tification of seeing it expire in his hands."
Some months later, he wrote again from New Ha- ven, and referring to the embarrassments which had grown out of the action of the people at Rye, he said, "As matters now stand, and as Mr. Punderson's return would certainly prove fatal to this Church, which was even panting for breath, and just ready to expire when he left it, I shall be well pleased with the So- ciety's approbation and consent to succeed him, though Rye would have suited me better." The exchange of places between the two gentlemen proved bene- ficial to the interests of the Church. As vigor is added to the tree by transplanting it in a new and stronger soil, so years and influence are sometimes added to the life of a clergyman by changing his as- sociations, and permitting him to breathe in a dif- ferent atmosphere. Mr. Punderson was eminently blessed in his ministry at Rye; and we leave Mr. Palmer in New Haven, at the close of the year 1763, engaged in the zealous discharge of his pastoral office, and toiling successfully to bring back the scattered members of the Church.
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CHAPTER XVII.
CHURCH IN NEW HAVEN; DEFENCE OF THE SOCIETY FOR PROP- AGATING THE GOSPEL; AND AN AMERICAN EPISCOPATE.
A. D. 1763-1764.
A CENTURY ago, the river which divides New Haven from East Haven was crossed by an inconvenient ferry. Mr. Punderson found it difficult at some sea- sons, and impossible at others, to pass over into the towns of Branford and Guilford for the purpose of discharging the duties of his office. This was one reason which led to the ultimate discontinuance of his stated services in those towns; but a stronger lay in the desire of the churchmen in New Haven for the constant presence of their Missionary. The erection of a "handsome" house of worship, the purchase of land for a glebe, and the generous provision of the people, according to their ability, for the support of a clergyman, added to the peculiar demands of the place as the seat of the College, and the centre of strong Congregational influences, encouraged the hope that New Haven might be formed into a dis- tinct Mission, and permitted to enjoy, what was so necessary to the prosperity of the Church there, unin- terrupted ministrations. It was with this hope that Mr. Palmer removed from Litchfield, and assumed pastoral responsibilities in the vicinity of his native town. Writing to the Society, May 6, 1764, after his
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family had become settled in New Haven, he said: "The state of this Church is pretty much the same as when I last wrote, flourishing and increasing. Divers straying members have returned and steadfastly ad- here to us, and several respectable heads of families have been newly proselyted, and, from the present view of things, there seems to be a foundation of hope for still greater increase. The churchpeople here have been wanting in nothing that their abili- ties could do for the honor of their profession. They are but few in number, and most of them of but mod- erate fortunes."
Anxious to secure the land which lay over against their house of worship,1 and which was designed in the indenture, made, thirty years before, by William Greg- son, for the use and benefit of the Church of England in New Haven, Enos Alling purchased it of the party in possession, and obtained a "warranty deed," Septem- ber 12th, 1765. Towards the end of the succeeding month he conveyed it to "Timothy Bonticou and Isaac Doolittle, Church-wardens, and Christopher Kilby and Stephen Mansfield, Vestrymen of Trinity Church in New Haven, and the rest of the members of the said Episcopal church," "for the consideration of two hun- dred and seventy-one pounds five shillings lawful money, the same consideration which had been named in the instrument of his own purchase." The title of the grantor ran back to a great-grandson, in the fe- male line, of Thomas Gregson, the first proprietor, and this descendant with his father had been in pos-
1 The first Episcopal church in New Haven stood on the east side of Church Street, on ground now occupied by the block of three stores next north of the Odeon building.
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session more than forty years, and therefore claimed exclusive ownership.
Thomas Gregson was one of the original and most influential planters of the New Haven Colony, -"a colony," to quote the words of Cotton Mather, "con- stellated with many stars of the first magnitude." He signed the fundamental agreement formed in a gen- eral meeting, that church-members only should be free burgesses and have the power to choose from among themselves magistrates and officers to trans- act all public business. He was an active merchant, and held those high trusts and responsibilities in the colony which indicated the confidence of the planters in his wisdom and integrity. He was the first white settler in East Haven, making his settlement at a place called "Solitary Cove." When the colonists found their commercial enterprises threatened with disaster, and their large estates fast melting away, they attempted to retrieve their fortunes by a new effort; and "gathering together almost all the strength which was left them, they built one ship more, which they freighted for England with the best part of their tradable estates; and sundry of their eminent per- sons embarked in her for the voyage." In the month of January, 1646, when the harbor was completely frozen over, "a passage was cut through the ice with saws, for three miles," and the "great ship," with George Lamberton for the master, and Thomas Greg- son as a commissioner "to procure a patent from the Parliament for these parts," floated out amid the pray- ers and benedictions of the people, assembled to wit- ness the departure of their friends. That ship, with "the divers godly persons, men and women," who em-
VOL. I. 15
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barked in it, was never heard of again. Month after month elapsed, and finally a year, and still no tidings were received of their fate. Tradition has preserved "the apparition of a ship in the air," "the mould" of Lamberton's vessel, coming up the mouth of the harbor after a great thunder-storm in June, long subsequent to the sailing, first appearing with "her main-top blown off, but left hanging in the shrouds," then with "all her masting" gone, and finally with the keel only, which quickly "careened" and vanished out of sight. And thus "the afflicted spirits" of the colonists were quieted, because they superstitiously believed that God had in this way condescended to give an "ac- count of His disposal of those for whom so many pray- ers had been offered." When all hope of their re- turn had ceased, their estates were legally settled. "The inventory of the estate of Mr. Thomas Gregson, deceased," amounting to nearly £500, "was delivered into the court; and being viewed, was delivered to the Secretary to be recorded," under date of Decem- ber 7th, 1647. He left no will, and his property, by the existing laws, went to his family. His only son Richard and one of his daughters returned and re- sided in England, but his widow and the other seven daughters lived and died in this country. It was in the line of descent from his son that a claim was set up to the land which subsequently came into the pos- session of Trinity Church.
By the English law of entails, the eldest son in- herited, and by the colonial enactments of New Ha- ven and Connecticut, where a man died without a will, one third part at least of his estate went to the widow, if he left a widow, and the remaining two
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thirds were divided among the children, "with due respect to the eldest son," who was to have a child's double portion of the whole estate, real and personal, unless the General Court, upon just cause and grounds, should judge otherwise, either for dividing the estate, or for the portion of the first-born. The final settle- ment and distribution of Thomas Gregson's estate did not take place until April 3, 1715; and then, when the son was dead, there was set off, with other property, to "the heirs of Richard, the oldest and only son of the deceased, 1 acre 2 and 24 rods of the Home lot, North part;"1 and this is the land which was after- wards conveyed to Mr. Arnold.
Thus, by both the English and colonial laws, as well as by the division of the estate, the claim might have been asserted; and to extinguish forever any title of this sort, instructions were afterwards given to an agent of the colony,2 to obtain from William Greg- son, the same great-grandson of Thomas Gregson, who had once conveyed it in trust to Mr. Arnold, a release of all his right, title, and interest in the land. The release was " for the consideration of five shillings money received," and, like the deed of Mr. Alling, was made to " Timothy Bonticou, Isaac Doolittle, and the rest of the professors of the Church of England and members of Trinity Church for the time being, and to their successors," and it was dated October 26th, 1768; but fourteen years elapsed before it was entered upon the records in New Haven, and by that time Sir Guy Carleton, commander of the British armies in America, had communicated to General Washington that nego- tiations for peace had been commenced in Paris, and
1 New Haven Probate Records, pp. 397, 398. 2 Dr. Wm. S. Johnson.
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that the independence of the colonies would be con- ceded as a preliminary step.
Bitter assaults were commenced upon the Church by her adversaries throughout New England shortly before the establishment of the second Missionary in New Haven. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts was attacked, and the Mis- sionaries accused of gross misrepresentations. "The invidious Dr. Mayhew," said Palmer, "of base princi- ples, and it is to be feared a dishonest heart, has raised a dust to blind men's eyes, and stir up a popu- lar clamor. They are very liberal in their satires, and impute faults where there are none." On this account he thought it would be well "if the Society had a large number of upright, honest-hearted, faith- ful members here," and in one of his letters recom- mended as worthy of this honor, both for his "liberal education and affluent circumstances," Mr. Enos Al- ling, at the same time adding: "He is truly catholic in his temper, has been the greatest benefactor to this church, [New Haven,] and would, I doubt not, do all he could for the interests of the Society, and the furtherance of their pious and charitable designs; and as he is childless, though a married man, would at least leave them a legacy." The controversy re- specting the Society for Propagating the Gospel was conducted principally by Mayhew on the one side, and Apthorp of Massachusetts, Johnson, and Beach on the other. It reached across the Atlantic, and was resumed in England, Archbishop Secker taking up his pen and nobly, yet temperately, vindicating the Society from the aspersions of its enemies, and from the many injurious reflections cast by Mayhew
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in his pamphlet on the Church of England, and on the design of appointing Bishops in America. Dr. John- son, writing to the Archbishop, September 20, 1764, thus referred to his defence: "I was almost overjoyed, after our feeble efforts, to find one who, I did not doubt, was the ablest hand in the kingdom, had con- descended to undertake our mighty giant, and, in the opinion of our people, had wholly disarmed him; nor had any of the dissenters, that I can hear of, a word to say, except Mayhew himself, who, upon its being immediately reprinted here, directly advertised an answer preparing, contrary to the advice of his best friends. I had it from a good hand, that a man of the best sense among them told him he was com- pletely answered, and advised him by no means to at- tempt a reply."1
He was possessed with the idea that the Society had been established with the secret intent of usurp- ing authority over the various Christian communities already settled in America, and that real Missionary work among the heathen was not thought of or re- garded. But he overlooked the fact that the charter had distinctly declared the design to be to provide "an orthodox clergy" for the "loving subjects" of the British Crown in the plantations, and, also, to make "such other provision" as might "be necessary for the Gospel in those parts." It was clear that this "other provision" meant a care for the Indian tribes, and it was clear, moreover, that the avowed purpose of the Church, and of the Society through which she acted, was to proclaim the Gospel to the heathen in and near all her colonial possessions. The fulfilment of 1 Johnson MSS.
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this purpose was the symbol engraved upon the offi- cial seal of the Society; its difficulties and require- ments had been minutely described in the pages of the first Annual Report, and no suitable opportunity of furthering it had ever been designedly omitted.
Because the growth of the Episcopal Church throughout New England was attributed by the Inde- pendents or Congregationalists to the influence of the Crown, and especially to the patronage of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, the establishment of every new mission was viewed with fresh jealousy; and hence the founding of one at Cambridge, in the immediate neighborhood of Harvard College, and the appointment of so able and accomplished a Missionary as Apthorp, appears to have been regarded by May- hew as a part of what he called "a formal design to carry on a spiritual siege of our churches, with the hope that they will one day submit to a spiritual sov- ereign."1 Nothing could be more dignified than the reply of Archbishop Secker to this charge, when he said that "several members of the Church of England send their children to Harvard College, and such a place of worship as their parents approve may be reasonably provided for them, without any design of proselyting others. There is, indeed, a college in New England, where students have been forbidden to attend Episcopal service, and a young man has been fined for going to hear his own father, an Epis- copal minister, preach. But in Harvard College, it seems, a better spirit prevails; and it is more likely to flourish, both for that moderation and the new church built near it."
1 Observations on the Charter and Conduct of the Society, &c., p. 56.
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The college in New England to which the Arch- bishop referred, was undoubtedly Yale, and the young man was a son of Punderson, who might have been fined in obedience to a law of the Institution, for ab- sence from the chapel, when the reason of his absence was unknown to the Faculty. The law which required, at that time, under such a penalty, all students to at- tend public worship in the College chapel, except Epis- copal students on communion Sundays, was in accord- ance with the spirit of the age, and of course entirely indefensible on the principle of religious liberty.1
One great and efficient cause of the rapid increase of the Church lay in the divisions and controversies of the standing order. Some among them saw this, and, for a time at least, sharp and undisguised at- tacks on the doctrines of Calvin were permitted by their stoutest advocates to pass unnoticed. They rather turned with complacency and approbation to the zeal and force with which Episcopacy was assailed in high quarters, and they seem to have anticipated its overthrow when such champions as Hobart of Fairfield, Welles of Stamford, and Mayhew and Chaun- cey of Boston, asserted the Divine right of Presby- terian ordination and the primitive equality of Gos- pel ministers. Mr. Welles, in a discourse of seventy- eight closely printed pages, published in 1763, "at the desire of the hearers, with some enlargements," said, in his preface: "As it is probable that few of you are possessed of any of the books heretofore published, in vindication of our ministerial power, while your Epis- copal neighbors, perhaps, are generally supplied with the arguments commonly offered on the other side
1 Appendix B.
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of the question, and so are better prepared to dis- course upon the subject, the same reasons which in- duced me to preach upon it have at length prevailed upon me to consent to its publication."
The Independents were constantly frightened by the apparition of the English hierarchy. An un- founded alarm was spread throughout New England, and an apprehension created, that all the evils which adhered to the Church in the Old World would be transplanted to this, and hence the appointment of Bishops for America was strenuously resisted, and bit- terness added to the controversy from a fear that the accessories of wealth and temporal power would attend their arrival. The dignified and temperate reply of Archbishop Secker to Dr. Mayhew, published in Lon- don in 1764, and afterwards reprinted in this country, presents the whole argument in so clear and concise a view, that it deserves to be quoted at length.
"The Church of England is, in its constitution, Epis- copal. It is, in some of the plantations, confessedly the established Church; in the rest are many congre- gations adhering to it; and through the late exten- sion of the British dominions, it is likely that there will be more. All members of every church are, ac- cording to the principles of liberty, entitled to every part of what they conceive to be the benefits of it, entire and complete, so far as consists with the wel- fare of civil government. Yet the members of our Church in America do not thus enjoy its benefits, having no Protestant Bishop within three thousand miles of them, -a case which never had its parallel before in the Christian world. Therefore it is desired that two or more Bishops may be appointed for them,
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to reside where His Majesty shall think most conven- ient; that they may have no concern in the least with any persons who do not profess themselves to be of the Church of England, but may ordain ministers for such as do; may confirm their children, when brought to them at a fit age for that purpose; and take such oversight of the Episcopal clergy as the Bishop of London's Commissaries in those parts have been em- powered to take, and have taken without offence. But it is not desired in the least that they should hold courts to try matrimonial or testamentary causes; or be vested with any authority now exercised either by provincial governors or subordinate magistrates; or infringe or diminish any privileges or liberties en- joyed by any of the Laity, even of our own commun- ion. This is the real and the only scheme that has been planned for Bishops in America; and whoever has heard of any other, has been misinformed through mistake or design."1
Dr. Mayhew was so completely disarmed on read- ing this statement that he confessed in his Rejoinder, that, if it were true, he "had been misinformed him- self, and knew of others who had been so in common with him; and that, if such a scheme as this were car- ried into execution, and only such consequences were to follow as the proposer had professedly in view, he could not object against it, except on the same prin- ciple that he should object against the Church of England in general."2 He, however, considered him- self at liberty to treat it as the imaginary scheme of a private individual and without authority, because it
1 Answer to Dr. Mayhew's Observations, &c., p. 59.
2 Rejoinder, p. 79.
-
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was published anonymously. His Rejoinder contained so much reproachful language and so many misrep- resentations that it was very sensibly reviewed by Mr. Apthorp, which put an end to that particular contro versy. But Mayhew, dying the next year, left his mantle, as we shall see hereafter, to Dr. Chauncey.
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CHAPTER XVIII.
HOSTILITY TO THE CHURCH; PASSAGE OF THE STAMP-ACT, AND THE COURSE OF THE CLERGY.
A. D. 1764-1766.
THOUGH the public mind was charged with a feeling of intense hostility to the Church, yet she still con- tinued to increase, especially in Connecticut, and her Missionaries relaxed none of their fidelity and zeal in the performance of their duties. The want of accom- modation in some places was a hindrance to her growth, and the enlargement of certain houses of worship was only prevented by a lack of pecuniary ability. Mr. Beardsley, in the summer of 1764, re- ported the prosperity of his Mission at Groton and Norwich, and "blessed God that those who were grounded in the doctrine and discipline of the Church, appeared more and more zealous and attentive to her excellent form of worship," notwithstanding the great disorders among the "different denominations," and the "prodigious flood of wild enthusiasm" which had lately broken out in those parts from the visits of Whitefield. Mr. Graves, at New London, who had in- curred the displeasure of his brethren by the course he had formerly pursued, wrote, a little later: "Four new pews have been built; they were engaged as soon as they were laid out, and so would a dozen
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more have been." In his next communication to the Society, dated April 20, 1765, he touched upon a point which occasionally troubled the Missionaries, and caused charges to be preferred against them for departing from the Liturgy when holding service in a private dwelling where not one member of the Church of England was present to make the usual re- sponses. "God forbid," said he, "that we should vary from the rubric when officiating in our churches; but in houses I humbly presume it might be some- what winked at, in order to wean the dissenters from their prejudices for the present, in hopes of winning them over to our more reasonable service in time. But in this I submit to the direction of my superiors, which I shall always observe. How acceptable I am to the dissenters of all sorts appears from their send- ing for me in their illness, and desiring my spiritual advice in the most necessitous times, which I always comply with. My prayers, without books, earnestly engage their attention, and gradually wear away their prejudices, when they find we can pray without a form, as well as their own formal teachers." The church at Hebron, under the ministry of Peters, was by this time finished, through the aid of a legacy which should have been earlier secured, and Mr. Hub- bard had returned from England and fixed himself in his native place, where he was imbedding himself in the affections of a grateful people, spread out into other towns than Guilford. The long vacant post on the Connecticut River was filled by his friend and companion on the voyage for Holy Orders; and Mr. Andrews, the self-denying Missionary at Wallingford, North Haven, and Cheshire, who had statedly ren-
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dered gratuitous services to the Church in Middle- town, was permitted henceforth to apply himself to the duties of his own flourishing cure. In a letter to the Secretary of the Society, dated July 5, 1766, Dr. Johnson wrote: "The Church has of late so much increased at Branford (Mr. Palmer's native place), that they hope without the Society's assistance (there being there some wealthy persons) to make it worth his while, within about a year, to quit the Society's service and move thither, and he inclines to hearken to their proposal, and I wish it may succeed to his mind. In the mean time he proposes to continue the care of New Haven another year, till they have built a church at Branford."
This project, for some reason, was unsuccessful; perhaps because Mr. Palmer, who always appears to have retained an affection for the scene of his earliest ministrations, was soon recalled to the Mission in Litchfield County, already made vacant by the la- mented death of that young, accomplished, and labori- ous servant of Christ, Thomas Davies. He had lived long enough to see, in 1765, a new church erected under his charge at New Milford, but the next year he died. Mr. Palmer, who complained that he could not support his large family in the expensive town of New Haven on his salary, removed to Litchfield in the autumn of 1766, and after five years of contin- uous service in that region, amid many infirmities, he also was laid to his rest in the grave.
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