USA > Connecticut > The history of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut, Vol. I > Part 9
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dismissed from his pastoral labors by an ecclesiastical council, declared for Episcopacy, and was followed by a number of his warmest adherents. A house of wor- ship, the sixth in the colony, was erected the next year, and Mr. Bliss for some time supplied them with services as a lay reader.
Mr. Punderson, who went to England for ordination in the spring of 1734, was returned by the Society " as an itinerant Missionary, to take care of some towns which had petitioned for ministers." North Groton (now Ledyard) and Norwich were especially desirous of his services. His residence was among the same people whom he had served in the capa- city of a Congregational minister, and who still re- tained for him a strong personal affection. A parish was soon organized, and a church erected in North Groton, with whose history that of the present parish at Poquetannock is blended. His ministrations in New London County were abundant; and after the removal of Mr. Seabury to Hempstead on Long Island, he was for a time the only Missionary in that region, and breasted bravely the storms of fanaticism and the spirit of uncharitableness towards the Church, which nowhere in the colony were more furious and extrav- agant. He went beyond Hebron, even to Middle- town, some forty miles from his home, and, at the earnest solicitation of a considerable number, held a public service there early in the summer of 1739, and had a congregation of nearly one hundred sober- minded people. While these things were going on in the eastern part of Connecticut, the churchmen in the westernmost, under Caner and Wetmore, were watching their opportunities and struggling against
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the disadvantages of their position. Those living in the shore towns, (Greenwich and Stamford,) nearest to the Province of New York, found it most convenient to attend upon the ministrations of the Society's Mis- sionary settled in Rye, and they sought, according to the tenor of the law of this colony, to turn the due proportion of their taxes for the maintenance of re- ligious teachers to the support of Mr. Wetmore. But they failed entirely to accomplish their object, even though they went so far as to present "an humble address to the General Assembly, praying for a redress of this grievance."
The Missionary at Fairfield, worn down by the arduous labors of his extensive field, took a voyage to England, with the view of recruiting his exhausted powers; and the Bishop of Gloucester, writing to Johnson from London, under date of March 9th, 1736, said, "I wish Mr. Caner, who has the character from you and every one of a very deserving man, might acquire a better state of health by his journey hither." He opened the same letter with a graceful reference to that important subject which was never out of the minds of the early clergy of Connecticut, -an Ameri- can Episcopate. "You needed no apology for any application you could make to me in relation to any- thing wherein you might think me capable of serving the Church in America. I wish my capacity were equal to my desire of doing it. No one is more sen- sible of the difficulties in general you labor under in those parts, and in particular of those you complain of for want of a Bishop residing among you. My own interest, to be sure, is inconsiderable; but the united interest of the Bishops here is not powerful enough
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to effect so reasonable and right a thing as the send ing some Bishops into America." "So reasonable and right a thing!" That was well said; and had not the Church of England been entangled with the power of the throne, or had not the government been merce- mary and afraid of taking any step which might dis- please the colonies and be supposed to interfere with their temporal prosperity, or lead to their indepen- dence, America would have been favored with a Bishop in the beginning of the eighteenth century.
Mr. Caner was back at his mission in the autumn of 1736, with an improved state of health. His brother Richard, who graduated at Yale College in that year, and became a candidate for Holy Orders, rendered him much assistance in his duties; for besides teaching a school in Fairfield, he walked over to Norwalk on Sat- urday, and officiated there as a lay reader on Sunday, -using "a form of prayer extracted out of the Church Liturgy, and some good practical sermon, or other plain printed discourse of the Divines of the Church of England." The gradual growth of the principal parish in Caner's mission - the parish where he had his residence - led to the measure of erecting a new and larger house of worship. The churchmen of Fair- field had purchased, in 1727, half an acre of land as a glebe, with a house standing thereon, in the centre of the town, and had sent a deed of it to the Society for Propagating the Gospel, by the hands of Mr Henry Caner, when he went to England for ordina- tion. It was an object of the Society, in all cases to obtain from the people pledges of glebes and other means of ministerial support, as a condition on which its own assistance was to be rendered and continued,
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and probably in no place in the colony were the do nations more liberal than in Fairfield. Men there remembered the Church in their wills; and Dougal Mckenzie, the father-in-law of Rev. Henry Caner, en- tailed for its benefit a levy upon the whole of his real estate. It is true, all which was thus donated was not secured; but enough was secured to give vigor to the missionary enterprise of the Society, and to gladden the hearts of churchmen, at the same time that they felt an abatement of the persecuting spirit and temper of the people.
The old edifice, opened in 1725, and which was suffi- ciently capacious to admit of galleries for a hundred persons or more, had become, to quote a unique phrase of that time, "much too little for the congre- gation," besides being "near a mile from the centre of the town." The second church was commenced in 1738; and at a town-meeting held July 27th of that same year, a vote was adopted giving "liberty to the members of the Church of England" to build it, upon certain conditions, "on the highway near the Old Field gate," about eighty rods from the meeting- house. With the aid of donations from New York and the Society in England, it was completed in a " very decent manner"; being fifty-five feet in length, thirty-five in breadth, and twenty in height, "with a handsome steeple and spire of one hundred feet, and a good bell of five hundred weight."
Thus the second parish organized in Connecticut had so far outstripped in prosperity the mother-church at Stratford as to be many years before it in the erec- tion of its second and larger house of worship.
Several respectable families were added to the
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Church of England at Norwalk by the occasional min- istrations of Mr. Caner, and the whole number there was so great as to warrant the organization of a parish in 1737, and the building of a small church about the same time. The influence of his brother as a lay reader undoubtedly contributed to this growth; but the general attention to religion, awakened at that period throughout New England, was an advantage to the Episcopal Church, and a providence which its few clergy, in all missionary stations, were diligent to improve. Dr. Trumbull, in his "History of Connec- ticut," after speaking of the "dreadful disease called the throat distemper," which was attended with such extraordinary mortality as to sweep off suddenly and entirely many families of children, thus introduces the spiritual condition of the colony :
" The country was filled with mourners and bitter affliction. But the people in general continued se- cure. The forms of religion were kept up, but there appeared but little of the power of it. Both the wise and foolish virgins seemed to slumber. Profess- ors appeared too generally to become worldly and lukewarm. The young people became loose and vicious, family prayer and religion were greatly neg- lected, the Sabbath was lamentably profaned; the intermissions were spent in worldly conversation. The young people made the evenings after the Lord's day, and after lectures, the times for their mirth and company-keeping. Taverns were haunted, intemper- ance and other vices increased, and the spirit of God appeared to be awfully withdrawn. It seems also to appear that many of the clergy, instead of clearly and powerfully preaching the doctrines of original
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sin, of regeneration, justification by faith alone, and the other peculiar doctrines of the Gospel, contented themselves with preaching a cold, unprincipled, and lifeless morality; for, when these great doctrines were perspicuously and powerfully preached, and distinc- tions were made between the morality of Christians, originating in evangelical principles, faith and love, and the morality of heathens, they were offended, and became violent opposers.
"In this state of general declension and security it pleased God, in sovereign mercy, to begin an extraor- dinary work of conviction and conversion, such as had never been experienced in New England before. It began in several places in Massachusetts and Con- necticut as early as the years 1735 and 1736, but became more extraordinary and much more general in 1740 and 1741." Johnson, writing to a friend in London early in the autumn of 1739, says, "I should be glad to know from you what is the general sense of the clergy about Mr. Whitefield and his proceed- ings, of which our newspapers are generally filled. There has been very much such a stir among the Dissenters in some parts of this country as he makes in England."
The Church was a gainer in those days of religious excitement by the steady presentation of the truth and the calm pursuance of her Scriptural course,- avoiding on the one hand the extreme of coldness and indifference, and on the other the heats of fa- naticism and uncharitableness. In the year 1736 an accurate inquiry was made into the number of Epis- copal families in the whole colony, and it was found to be about seven hundred.
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CHAPTER VIII.
THE CHURCHMEN OF CONNECTICUT PETITIONING FOR A REDRESS OF THEIR GRIEVANCES; AND REACTION OF PUBLIC SENTI- MENT.
A. D. 1738-1740.
IN 1738 "the members and professors of the Church of England, living in Connecticut, being his Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, and sincerely well- attached to the constitution of the Government," as " incorporated by Royal Charter," humbly addressed the General Assembly, at its May Session, relative to a matter which they apprehended to very nearly con- cern their interests and welfare. They alluded to the Act passed in 1727, whereby they were exempted from contributing to the support of the ministers of the Congregational or Presbyterian persuasion, which were those that were peculiarly countenanced by the laws of the government, and from paying towards building meeting-houses; and from thence they con- cluded, that, in the opinion of the Legislature, it was " not only not right to compel people to the support of that worship and ministry from which they solely dissented, but also that it was just and right for every one to have the benefit of his own way of worship, and of his own labor and interest to support that way of worship."
The particular occasion, therefore, of their humble
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address was this. An Act had been passed in the pre- vious assembly held at New Haven, respecting the seven townships laid out in the western lands be- longing to Connecticut, whereby the moneys to be raised from the sale of those lands, amounting to about £70,000, were appropriated either to the use of schools or to the support of the ministers of the Congregational or Presbyterian persuasion, to be di- vided to the parishes in proportion to their several lists, and in such a manner that the members of the Church of England could lay no claim to any share for the support of their ministers or schools; and a bill had been prepared and passed in the Lower House of the same assembly, which might become a law by further action, whereby the public moneys arising from the Last Emission (bills of credit) were also to be appropriated to the support of the Con- gregational ministers, and to the utter exclusion of the ministers of the Church of England. Something of this kind had been done on a smaller scale in the towns, and certain sequestered lands had been sold for the maintenance of the established religious order.
The memorialists were so far from envying their Congregational brethren, or wishing to hinder the passage of measures in their favor, that they heartily applauded the "good and generous disposition " of the Assembly ; but they claimed that "it would be a manifest injustice for them to be denied their share in the public moneys for the support of their minis- ters"; and hence they recited no less than seven rea- sons why the legislative action should be altered or amended so as "to secure to them their proportion in
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the said public moneys as well as to their brethren of any other denomination."
These reasons are as interesting as they are forcible, and ought to be briefly noted in this place, as a part of the history of the times.
The churchmen, therefore, pleaded for their rights, to quote from the language of their memorial, -
" First; because the doctrines and principles of the Church of England do professedly and most certainly tend, (at least equally with those of any other per- suasion,) not only to fit and prepare men for eternal happiness in the life to come, but also to promote the public good of society in this world by teaching them to be sober, virtuous, and industrious in their callings, serious and devout towards God, and just and chari- table towards men, and in every respect to be good Christians, kind neighbors, upright magistrates, and dutiful subjects.
" Secondly ; because the Church of England is that profession and persuasion which is established at home in the mother-country, and which his most sacred Majesty professes, and has bound himself by oath to maintain, from whom the colonists received and under whom they held their charter privileges, and who, therefore, with those in the government and admin- istration under him, would be apt to resent any un- equal treatment which the members of the Church might receive from the provinces abroad under his dominion and protection.
" Thirdly ; because the welfare and happiness of this as well as all other governments depends upon the union and joint endeavors of all its members, in pro- moting one and the same common good and general
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interest; whereas an unequal treatment of different denominations of Christians is apt to breed envies, animosities, and contentions, necessarily tending to weaken authority, to destroy the public peace, and to bring in its train divers disadvantages.
" Fourthly ; because, in the opinion of the Attorney- General and Solicitor, and other gentlemen of the law at home, there could be no such thing as a regular establishment of any one denomination of Christians in Connecticut, to the exclusion of the rest, without an explicit consent of the King's Majesty.
" Fifthly ; because they had equally a right in equity to their proportion in the unoccupied lands with their brethren of any other denomination ;" since "all the lands within the bounds of the government, being purchased or conquered by their common progenitors or ancestors, were by the Royal Charter alike granted and confirmed, according to their several proportions of right, to the whole corporation, consisting of the body of the people.
" Sixthly ; because they bore an equal proportion of the public taxes for maintaining the government," and it was presumable that "they had a right to an equally proportionable share in the benefit accruing therefrom with those of any other denomination in accordance with that just maxim in the law, -Qui sentit onus sentire debet et commodum; - He that feels a share in the burden, ought also to enjoy his share in the advantage." And,
Seventhly and lastly, they claimed consideration be- cause the Act appeared to be manifestly inconsistent with the intent of the law passed in 1727, for the relief of members of the Church of England, and
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which exempted them from taxes for the support of Congregationalism. It is true that law, said to have been adopted at a time when the colonists were apprehensive of losing their charter, was strangely frustrated ; and in some places it was contrived to elude its intent, by comprehending the minister's sup- port in the town-rate, and thereby obliging church- men to contribute to the maintenance of the Congre- gational pastors when they paid their town-rates. Still it was some relief, and was growing to be more and more so, as the Episcopal churches and mission- aries increased.
The memorial thus earnestly presented, and asking equal privileges and protection, was signed by six hundred and thirty-six males, all above sixteen years old, resident in nine parishes or stations, and under the charge of seven clergymen of the Church of England, i. e., Johnson, Caner, Beach, Arnold, Wetmore, Sea- bury, and Punderson. The consideration of the me- morial was referred to the October Session of the Gen- eral Assembly, when the question was put whether anything should be granted on it, and it was resolved in the negative by both Houses.
So accustomed were they to such refusals, that the result appears neither to have disappointed the me- morialists, nor altogether to have disheartened them, for the application was renewed by the clergy to the General Assembly at its May Session in 1740; and Johnson, writing to Bishop Berkeley in June of that year, says, in reference to it, "Nothing has yet been done; next October will be the last time of asking, but I do not expect they will finally grant our peti- tion. However, the Church greatly increases." When
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October came, he wrote to Dr. Bearcroft, the Secre- tary of the Society, thus: "The event is, that rather than let the Church share in it," (the amount arising from the sale of the seven new townships,) "the as- sembly proposed to repeal that law that vested the several Dissenting ministers in their dividend of it, exclusive of the Church; though I imagine they will have some contrivance yet to serve themselves, and exclude us, for the increase of the Church in the country is very displeasing to those at the helm, and disposes them to distress us all the way they can." The proposition to repeal was adopted, and the pro- ceeds of the sale by a former Act went to the main- tenance of popular education.
Connecticut may well remember with gratitude the vigilance of these early churchmen in preventing the threatened diversion to a purely sectarian purpose of what afterwards became, in each of the towns in the colony, a fund for the benefit of schools.
Jonathan Arnold, the successor of Johnson at West Haven in the Congregational ministry, declared for the Church of England in 1734, and was entered in the Parish Register at Stratford as making his first communion on Easter day of that year, April 14th. An infant son of his was baptized into the Church about the same time; and going to England afterwards for Holy Orders, he was, at the earnest desire of the clergy of Connecticut, ordained and appointed an Itinerant Missionary for the colony. The Society was at that time pledged to the full amount of its in- come, and as Mr. Arnold was possessed of some means of his own, he expressed his willingness to serve with- out any stipend or remuneration other than the very
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trifling allowance afforded by the people. His resi- dence was in West Haven, and the chief places be- yond it where he most frequently officiated were Derby and Waterbury. In writing to the Secretary of the Society, under date of September 22, 1736, he says: "I performed divine service last Sunday at Mil- ford, one of the most considerable towns in Connec- ticut Colony, where the use of the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments, or the reading the Scripture in divine service, was never before known. There was a very numerous auditory, most attentive and desirous to be instructed in the worship of the Church of England; but those who are looking to- wards the Church are commonly the poorer sort of people .; for the staff of government being in the hands of the Dissenters, who rule the Church with an iron rod, those who receive honor one of another set themselves at a distance, and allow their rage and revenge to increase in proportion to the increase of the Church."
If Johnson had previously held no public service in Milford, he had at least, on three separate occa- sions, in 1727, '32, and '34, officiated in baptizing in- fant sons of the same household.
A movement was made in 1737 to build a church in Derby, but it appears not to have been finished as late as 1745. The means of churchmen were lim- ited, and all progress in the erection of houses of worship was necessarily slow. Sometimes the parishes were barely organized by the Missionaries, and left to grow under their infrequent ministrations, without attempting to build; in other words, left to be saluted by them, like "the brethren" of old "in Laodicea, and
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like Nymphas, and the church which was in his house." Hence we find it stated that a parish was formed at North Haven in 1723, and another about the same time at West Haven, but no churches were built in either of these places until many years afterwards, and no records of these early organizations can now be traced. West Haven was originally a part of New Haven, but in 1822 it was united with North Milford to form the town of Orange. Proceedings to erect an Episcopal church there were begun during the ministry of Mr. Arnold, and the frame of the edifice was raised in the spring of 1740, according to an account of the "Bene- factions for the Building of a Church in West Haven; and the Moneys laid out thereon." This account shows a very liberal expenditure for refreshments on that occasion, in the shape of rum and molasses and mut- ton, and other things deemed essential, in those times, at such popular gatherings. Mr. Arnold, out of his own means, and with the contributions solicited from friends of the Church elsewhere, was by far the most generous benefactor to the enterprise; but the edifice was not completed during his continuance in the mis- sion, nor probably was it made fit for use as a place of public worship. When the clergy of New Eng- land convened at New London in May, 1740, and sent home to the Honorable Society a representation of the state and desire of a considerable number of churchmen at Hopkinton and the parts adjacent, with their names appended, that of Jonathan Arnold was not among the signatures, because he had left, or was about to leave, the colony. He attempted to get possession of the land which afterwards became and is now, except the portion sold, the property of Trin- VOL. I. 8
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ity Parish in New Haven. This attempt was made before any steps were taken to build a church in West Haven, for Mr. Johnson, writing to Dr. Astry, under date of November 3, 1738, says: "Mr. Arnold lives about eight miles from me ; he is well, and gives his humble service to you. He also meets with very injurious treatment from the people of New Haven, where one Mr. Gregson of London gave him a lot to build a church on, which had descended to him from an ancestor of his who was one of the first settlers of that town. Mr. Arnold went the other day to take possession of it, and was allowed, without molestation from the person who had had it in possession, to enter upon it, and ploughed in it till afternoon, when he was mobbed off by one hundred and fifty people.1 This, with some other affairs, [may] oblige him to take another voyage to England, and I humbly hope he will meet with your countenance and interest."
1 In a pamphlet entitled " A Vindication of the Bishop of Landaff's Sermon from the gross misrepresentations and abusive reflections con- tained in Mr. Wm. Livingston's Letter to his Lordship," published in 1768, the author, after speaking, on page 40, of the treatment of the Society's Missionaries in New England, gives the following passage : - " Perhaps Mr. Livingston may remember some instances of this himself; once, especially, in a gallant exploit performed by the students of Yale Col- lege, in which he was more than a spectator. The scene of this noble action was a lot of ground in the town of New Haven, which had been bequeathed to the CHURCH for the use of a Missionary. There these magnanimous champions signalized themselves ; for once upon a time, quitting soft dal- liance with the muses, they roughened into sons of Mars, and issuing forth in deep and firm array, with courage bold and undaunted, they not only attacked, but bravely routed a YOKE OF OXEN and a poor Plowman, which had been sent by the then Missionary of New Haven, to occupy and plow up the said lot of ground. An exploit truly worthy of the renowned Hudibras himself!" The pamphlet, though published anonymously, was written by Dr. Inglis of New York, afterwards first Lord Bishop of Nova Scotia.
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