USA > Connecticut > The history of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut, from the settlement of the colony to the death of Bishop Seabury > Part 11
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The few churchmen in Waterbury, who for many years, in addition to the labors of the itinerant Mis- sionaries Arnold and Morris, were fed and cared for by Johnson and Beach, had become so numerous, that, in 1742, they resolved to erect a church, applied to the town for land, and received a grant from the treasury of twelve pounds, old tenor, "provided they purchased a place of any particular person to set their house on, and set it accordingly." The divisions and
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animosities in the Congregational Society gave inter- est and strength to their enterprise; and they went before the General Assembly, in October, 1744, with a petition signed by thirty-eight persons, "professors of the Church of England and inhabitants of the town of Waterbury," asking for corporate privileges and all the powers (the school only excepted) usually enjoyed by the parishes of the prevalent order. The petition, like similar memorials from churchmen in other towns, failed, and for the simple reason that the General As- sembly could not grant it without revoking or aban- doning the system of legislation which had made Congregationalism the religion of the colony. But the Church, notwithstanding, was soon completed, "with galleries above and pews below," and stood and was occupied for half a century, till a new one was erected in 1795.
What constitutes the present town of Plymouth formerly belonged to Waterbury. The first settlers were from different parts of Connecticut, several from North Haven; and because they were distant from the centre, nineteen petitioners, including one from West- bury (now Watertown), applied, in 1737, for "winter privileges," and were released from parish taxes an- nually in the months of December, January, and Feb- ruary, during a period of three years. At length they were incorporated into a parish by the name of North- bury, and an ecclesiastical society was formed in No- vember, 1739. Before they were incorporated, they united in the erection of an edifice with upper and lower rooms, suited to all their public wants, which appears to have been proprietary, and which they called a schoolhouse.
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The establishment of Episcopacy there arose out of the disorders of the time, and the sympathy of Samuel Todd, the Independent minister, with the great relig- ious excitement. A Prayer Book, owned by the wife of one of his parishioners, had much to do in directing and enlightening the minds of those who disapproved of his course, until eleven out of eighteen proprietors, or principal men, declared for the Church of England, took possession of the house which had been used for public worship, and voted to exclude the ministrations of Mr. Todd. They were under the guidance of Mr. Morris, not always, it must be con- fessed, the most prudent Missionary ; but in adopting this action they assured the minority that they would assist them in building another house to an extent equal to the interest which they had thus appropri- ated,-a promise said to have been faithfully redeemed, and to the pecuniary satisfaction of the ejected Con- gregationalists. The separation here mentioned oc- curred soon after the settlement of Mr. Todd, and towards the close of the year 1740.
In 1744, "the representation and humble petition" of the churchmen in Northbury to the Honorable So- ciety ran thus : "We were all educated in this land, under the instruction of the Independent teachers, or (as they would be called) Presbyterians; and, conse- quently, we were prejudiced strongly against the Church of England from our cradles, until we had the advantage of books from your Reverend Mission- aries and others, whereby we began to see with our own eyes that things were not as they had been rep- resented to our view; and Mr. Whitefield passing through this land, condemning all but his adherents;
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and his followers and imitators-by their insufferable enthusiastic whims and extemporaneous jargon- brought in such a flood of confusion amongst us, that we became sensible of the unscriptural method we had always been accustomed to take in our worship of God, and of the weakness of the pretended consti- tution of the churches (so called) in this land ; where* upon we fled to the Church of England for safety, and are daily more and more satisfied we are safe, pro- vided the purity of our hearts and lives be conform- able to her excellent doctrines."
Johnson, in a communication to Dr. Bearcroft some two years earlier, said : "Since my last, Ripton people in this town have raised a church, (which is the four- teenth in the colony,) and they hope in time the So- ciety will be in a condition to send them a minister entirely to themselves, where there will ere long be a good congregation. Indeed, ministers are very much wanted in several places, particularly at Simsbury and Hebron." The same hands which bore this letter car- ried another to a friend in London, in which, after speaking of the effects of the popular enthusiasm, he remarked: "It has occasioned such a growth of the Church in this town (as well as in many other places) that the church will not hold us, and we are obliged to rebuild or much enlarge."
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CHAPTER X.
A COMMISSARY FOR CONNECTICUT SOLICITED; AND THE INFLU- ENCE OF WHITEFIELD'S PREACHING.
A. D. 1742-1747.
THE prudence of the senior Missionary in Connec- ticut was only equalled by his learning and firmness. To remedy, in some degree, the inconveniences and difficulties which arose from the continued want of Episcopal oversight, Commissaries for America were appointed by the Bishop of London, who were under his own special direction, and to whom a limited au- thority was assigned. The Commissary for all New England was the Rev. Roger Price, who resided at Boston, and held the office for a period of twenty years. As the Church increased, and "enthusiasm in its worst colors was daily gaining ground," the clergy of Connecticut, in 1742, united in suggesting the expediency of appointing a Commissary for this colony, and stated, among other reasons, that their distance from Boston was such as to make it “im- practicable for them to attend upon the yearly con- vention," and consequently to receive the full ben- efit which the appointment was intended to afford. They stated, "There are now fourteen churches built and building, and seven clergymen, within this col- ony, and others daily called for." They "presumed to mention the Reverend Mr. Johnson, of Stratford,
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as a person from whose ability, virtue, and integrity" they might hope to gain all advantages; and he, though supporting their appeal, except as far as it related to himself, assured his Lordship that it was not from any influence of his, but from their own motion, that his brethren had been pleased to name him as fit to be appointed a Commissary in Connec- ticut. He added strength to their argument by say- ing: "When I came here, there were not one hundred adult persons of the Church in this whole colony, whereas now there are considerably more than two thousand, and at least five or six thousand young and old, and since the progress of this strange spirit of enthusiasm it seems daily very much increasing." All the Missionaries of the Society for the Propaga- tion of the Gospel, resident in Connecticut, signed or supported this request for a Commissary, save one, and he-the Rev. Mr. Morris-was an Englishman by birth, who had little acquaintance with the state of American society, and little disposition to recom- mend the Church by meeting the prejudices of the Independents in a spirit of kindness and conciliation. He was instrumental in conveying to Boston, as well as to London, a complaint which touched the good character of Johnson, and represented him as attend- ing the meetings of the dissenting teachers, and suf- fering his son to do the same. The degree of his displeasure may be learnt by an extract from a pri- vate letter which the senior Missionary wrote him in midsummer, 1742: "I hope your conscience is now entirely easy, having so effectually disburdened it at the Convention, and procured a chastisement to be sent to me, which I have received. However, I should
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be glad to see you once more, or to receive a few lines that I may know whether you are yet easy or not; and I hope you have not so entirely lost all friendship for me as to deny me that favor. At least, I hope you will prove so generous an enemy as not to smite me secretly, but that you will tell me hon- estly whether you intend, after all, to complain fur- ther to the Society of my great wickedness in not forbidding my son going to meeting now and then, which I must do or deny him any public education. . Mr. Morris, I have not deserved this unfriendly and unbrotherlike usage from you. I have endeav- ored to use you in the most kind and friendly man- ner I was able : what, therefore, could tempt you to begin this quarrel, and raise all this clamor against me both at New York and Boston, I cannot conceive."
No Commissary was appointed for Connecticut, be- cause the Bishop of London was unwilling to revoke or change any part of the commission which he had granted to Mr. Price, without his consent, or until his death or resignation. But Johnson still continued to be the leading light among the clergy of the colony, and to be consulted and regarded as a safe adviser in all matters relating to the prosperity of the Church. Mr. Morris, failing to be welcomed at New London, to which mission he was appointed after the removal of Mr. Seabury to Hempstead, L. I., finally returned to England, and was succeeded here at Derby, Water- bury, and the contiguous towns, in 1743, by the Rev. James Lyons, an Irishman, who, if he had genius and zeal, was another example of a tiller in the field that needed a special Missionary to watch him and keep him from running his plough upon the rocks.
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In justification of himself, and as due to the Society, Johnson confessed that he "did go to hear Whitefield once," before he was under the ban of censure by the Bishops and clergy of the Church of England, that he might be better enabled to present an antidote to the mischiefs which he apprehended from him and his followers; and for the same reason, "with two or three of his brethren of the clergy, he went one night, in the dark, and perfectly incognito, among a vast crowd, to see and hear" the managements and ravings of James Davenport. He defended the true teachings of Christianity, not with his voice only, but with his pen also. An excellent pamphlet, written and pub- lished by him, under the title of "A Letter from Aris- tocles to Anthades," designed to explain the script- ural doctrine of the divine sovereignty and promises, brought out a third time that veteran controversialist, Jonathan Dickinson, of New Jersey. The discussion was closed in 1744; but in the previous year his labors had so attracted the admiration of his friends in Eng- land, that they recommended him to the University of Oxford for the degree of Doctor in Divinity, and that University publicly renewed, with increased dis- tinction, the honor which it had conferred upon him just twenty years before. The hope expressed in the Master's diploma, " Sperantes, illius ministerio, aliam et eandem, olim, nascituram Ecclesiam Anglicanam," - that, through his instrumentality, the Church of England would rise up with new vigor in this country,-had been partly fulfilled, and the signs of its advancing to a further accomplishment were again gratefully rec- ognized; and hence Dr. Astry, in transmitting the di- ploma, said, "I do not so much consider myself doing
A
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a good office to a private friend as promoting the public interest of religion."
The second and larger church at Stratford, de- manded by the increased congregation, was opened, though unfinished, on the 8th of July, 1744; and Dr. Johnson, who contributed the bell, preached a sermon entitled "The Great Duty of Loving and Delighting in the Public Worship of God," which was published, with prayers for the family and closet appended. That edifice, so rich in historic associations and the scene of such a "bright succession" of pastors, served the children of the righteous for more than a century, and stood until six years ago, when it was replaced by an- other, more capacious, more elegant, and more suited to the advanced state of Christian architecture. It is a curious fact that the Congregationalists in Stratford, belonging to "the Old or Prime Society," moved at the same time to build a meeting-house, not quite as large as the church, but with a steeple ten feet higher. A division arose among them, and, after the General Assembly had "appointed, ordered, and affixed the place whereon the meeting-house should be erected," a memorial was served on the Society, in opposition to the whole proceeding, and a committee appointed to proceed to New Haven, where the Assembly was in session, to show reasons why the prayer thus served should not be heard. The erection of the building, however, was not prevented by these movements.
The Rev. Richard Caner, with an appointment from the Honorable Society, reached Norwalk, after his ordi- nation, in June, 1742, at which time the church there consisted of about thirty families. But. so successful were his ministrations, and so rapid the growth of the
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parish, that, in December following, the people re- solved to build a new church, and provided with great alacrity the means for its erection. The old one was removed a short distance and converted into a par- sonage. The transfer1 of Mr. Caner from Norwalk to Staten Island, in the autumn of 1745, a step which was soon followed by his death, at New York, of the small-pox, interrupted greatly the prosperity of the parish, and left the bereaved people for several years without a stated supply. At the date of Mr. Caner's removal he had ninety families under his charge; and his brother, writing from Fairfield in the next year, says : "The church of Norwalk is, I think, the largest and most flourishing church in this colony, which makes me the more solicitous to have some better provision made for it than I am capable of bestowing that way consistently with a proper care of other churches."
A second church at Newtown, "a strong, neat building, forty-six feet long and thirty-five wide," was erected in 1746, and the Missionary, in giving an ac- count of it to the Venerable Society, remarked, "It is very certain that our people generally expend more for the support of religion than their neighbors of the dissenting persuasion." In consequence of the public attention awakened to Episcopacy throughout Connecticut, parishes were organized and churches arose in new localities. The law, which for nearly twenty years had but imperfectly served the purposes
1 In the abstract of the Society for 1744, this is said to be " a reward for his faithful service in the care of the churches of Northfield," a misprint for Norfield (now Weston), " Ridgefield, and Norwalk, within the extensive cure of his brother, the Rev. Mr. Henry Caner, the Society's worthy Mis- sionary at Fairfield in Connecticut."
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of churchmen, was now beginning to work more to their advantage. For, amid all the turmoils and dis- sensions of Congregationalism, no new religious so- ciety of that order could be formed in any town and yet claim exemption from taxation to support the first or existing society. So wide had the breach become between the New Lights and the Old Lights, that at New Haven, in the last days of the year 1741, a move- ment was made for a separate society, and its mem- bers submitted long to be doubly taxed to insure its success. Governor Talcott, who welcomed the earliest visit of Whitefield as a time of spiritual refreshing, had descended to his grave; and under the adminis- tration of Jonathan Law, his successor, the General Assembly, with a view to prevent further separations, to suppress enthusiasm, and strengthen the confession of faith agreed upon at Saybrook, enacted a "number of severe and persecuting laws," and repealed or modi- fied those in favor of sober dissenting consciences. Dr. Trumbull calls the law of 1742 "a concerted plan of the Old Lights, or Arminians, both among the clergy and civilians, to suppress, as far as possible, all the zealous and Calvinistic preachers; to confine them entirely to their own pulpits; and, at the same time, to put all the public odium and reproach possible upon them as wicked, disorderly men, unfit to enjoy the common rights of citizens." "It was," he adds, "an outrage to every principle of justice," and "a pal- pable violation of the Connecticut bill of rights." The enactment of the General Assembly, at its May Session in 1746, though aimed directly at the same object, struck a blow at the Church, and excluded her mem- bers from voting in society meetings, and from having
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any share in levying those taxes which they were obliged to pay for the common support of religion.
But these measures did not really check the prog- ress of the Church of England in the colony. As early as 1740, Mr. Beach was instrumental in gather- ing an "Episcopal Society" in Woodbury; and a house of worship was soon after erected, within the limits of the town, "on the hill between a place called Tran-
sylvania and the present centre of Roxbury." In 1743, chiefly through his influence, a church was built at New Milford; and on the 5th of November, 1745, an organization was effected in Litchfield, and four years later a church was built, to which its principal bene- factor, Mr. John Davies, an Englishman, gave the name of St. Michael's. For the most part, in all places, the erection of houses of public worship, or the attempt to erect them, speedily followed the parochial organiza- tions. At Middletown thirty families, towards the end of the year 1742, "earnestly desired to be mentioned to the Venerable Society in hopes of their future fa- vors." In the sea-side towns there was quite as much progress to rejoice the hearts of churchmen. At the opening of the year 1747, "the thirty conformists" in Norwich, then, according to Punderson, "the largest and most flourishing of any town in the colony," pro- ceeded to build a house, "for the service of Almighty God, according to the Liturgy of the Church of Eng- land, as by law established, somewhere between the town and the Landing-Place," and they collected sub- scriptions for the purpose, not only from Norwich, but from Rhode Island and Boston. In Guilford, the birth- place of Johnson, and where he had several times administered the Sacrament of Baptism, a parish was
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formed in 1743, and another at North Guilford in 1747, after a division and contention arose among the Con- gregationalists in that town on the question of set- tling a minister. At Stamford, including Greenwich and the adjacent places, "the confusions of Method- ism" only made the Episcopalians more resolute; and a church was so far finished in the spring of 1747 as to be fit for occupancy. They had previously assisted Mr. Richardson Minor, a graduate of Yale College, and from 1730 to 1744 pastor of the Congregational Society in North Stratford (now Trumbull), to go home for Holy Orders; but he was taken by the French upon his passage, with Mr. Lamson, and after his release from confinement, while on his way with his fellow-sufferer from Port Louis in France to Lon- don, he died of a fever at Salisbury, to the great sor- row of his waiting flock and dependent family. Dr. Johnson, in alluding to the event, exclaimed, "Would to God we had a Bishop to ordain here, which would prevent such unhappy disasters." The Rev. Joseph Lamson, his companion, a native of Stratford and a graduate of Yale College, returned to this country in 1745, and his friends welcomed him "as one risen from the dead, among whom report had for some time placed him." The Society appointed him an Assistant to the Rev. Mr. Wetmore, the Missionary at Rye; and his particular duties were to minister under his direc- tion "to the inhabitants of Bedford, North-Castle, and Ridgefield, with a salary of £20 per annum, besides a gratuity of the same sum, out of compassion to Mr. Lamson's sufferings and necessities." It was a motive to this appointment that a church was already built at Ridgefield.
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The multiplication of parishes and the erection of churches ought to have been accompanied by a cor- responding increase in the number of Missionaries. The Rev. Wm. Gibbs, a graduate of Harvard Univer- sity, was sent to Simsbury; but with this exception, no new stations had been taken and supplied, while several of the old ones were vacant as late as the spring of 1747. By this time the Rev. Henry Caner, probably the most popular preacher of our Church in the colony, and who for twenty years fulfilled so well his mission at Fairfield, had removed to Boston, and entered upon the Rectorship of King's Chapel. Seabury had been transferred to Hempstead on Long Island, and Punderson, as he wrote in the previous year, was the only "laborer of the Episcopal order" in that part of Connecticut. Mr. Ebenezer Thompson, a native of West Haven, and a graduate of Yale Col- lege, having for a long time served the Church, most faithfully as a lay reader in the Mission of Mr. Morris, was recommended by the clergy for Holy Orders in 1743, with a request on their part that he might be returned to a portion of his former field; but, with a family to support, he was given the appointment of a better mission in Massachusetts. A year or two later, Mr. Hezekiah Watkins, who had been a minister among the Congregationalists, and Mr. Barzillai Dean, for some time a lay reader at Hebron, both graduates of Yale College and classmates, went over to England for ordination; but one was appointed to a charge in the Province of New York, and the other was lost with the ship which was bringing him back to this country,-a sad disappointment to the people of He- bron, who were prepared to welcome him in the office
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of the Priesthood. The elements of theological discord were in violent commotion, and not likely to be soon quieted: there wanted but the convenient opportu- nity for others to break away from the standing order and be employed in the service of the Church. This appears from a letter of Johnson to the Archbishop of Canterbury, written shortly before Christmas in 1742, and in which the following passage occurs: "It is a very great misfortune to the Church, now become a large body in these American colonies, that we can- not be provided for with at least one or two Bishops. I am persuaded at this juncture there are several dis- senting teachers who would take orders, if they could have them, by riding, though it were three or four hundred miles, and would bring all their people with them that are not infatuated with this New Light. And such is the disposition of many towards Episco- pacy, that I am afraid some will be tempted to go over to the Moravians on that account, who have a Bishop among them. At least an English Bishop would be the most effectual means to secure people from that and every other faction and delusion, as well as vastly to enlarge the Church. I have been informed that the chief pretence against sending Bishops has been an apprehension of these colonies effecting an inde- pendency on our mother-country. This is indeed a most groundless apprehension; but certainly a regular Episcopacy, even subordinate to the Bishop of London, would be so far from this that it would be one of the most effectual means to secure our dependency."
It is a weariness and vexation of the spirit to refer again and again to such records of fruitless entreaty and of repeated and unavailing remonstrances. While
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the Missionaries were devoting themselves heartily to their work, and sending home with renewed urgency their prayers for that help which the presence of a faithful Bishop could alone secure to them, the spirit- ual authorities of England were refused the power of granting it, simply because the policy of the State must be identified with the Church and override its prosperity. It was a time here when all the moral force which our offices, seen in their completeness, can supply, was needed. It was a time for church- men not to be charged with inconsistency, and up- braided for pressing the importance of things which* they were forbidden to enjoy. It was a time to open the eyes of those who were blinded by prejudice, and teach them to contrast the quiet walks of religion and the beauty and harmony of government with the convulsions and irregularities which everywhere pre- vailed. No gloomier picture of the moral and relig- ious state of the colony at this period can be drawn than that which appears in the proclamation of the Governor for a day of fasting in 1743. It is only equalled by the "brief and sorrowful account" of Samuel Niles, "a mournful spectator and sharer in the present calamities, and pastor of a church of Christ in Braintree." It deserves to be quoted in this connection. "Neglect and contempt of the Gos- pel and its ministers, a prevailing and abounding spirit of error, disorder, unpeaceableness, pride, bitter- ness, uncharitableness, censoriousness, disobedience, calumniating and reviling of authority, divisions, con- tentions, separations and confusions in churches, in- justice, idleness, evil speaking, lasciviousness, and all other vices and iniquities abounded."
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