USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > The memorial history of Hartford County, Connecticut, 1633-1884, Vol. II > Part 22
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his regular weekly meetings were as follows : Three services on Sun- day, involving two written discourses, and a familiar lecture or exposi- tion in the evening, with an occasional attendance at the Sunday school, a weekly lecture on Wednesday evening, and another, in some outlying school-house, on Thursday afternoon or evening. For all these services more or less definite preparation was made.
As an ethical teacher and guide he was bold and fearless and outspoken. In the early part of his ministry intemperance was a prevail- ing vice, and social drinking was universal, and even countenanced by the ministry. There were not a few of the greater and lesser immoral- ities against which he was expected to protest, and he did protest most earnestly. Some of these were especially prominent in the wealthy and gay community which at that time swarmed in the streets and houses of Farmington. In the early part of his pastorate an associa- tion was formed in the State for the promotion of Christian morals, before which, early in his ministry, Dr. Porter preached one of the annual sermons. He had been nearly twenty years in the pastorate before the first temperance movement commenced. Twenty years before this time a hogshead of rum had been sold at retail in a single day in the village, and eight or ten retail shops had been actively sus- tained by respectable traders. Most of the farmers depended for ready money on the sale of cider at the many numerous small distilleries. The evil was so serious that Dr. Porter, in connection with most of the Congregational pastors of Connecticut, acted with promptness and energy in furtherance of the first Temperance Reformation. He subsequently gave his cordial adhesion to the movement to abstain from all intoxicating drinks, and was far in advance of his people in both these enterprises. Then came the Antislavery excitement, which very sharply divided the pastors of the State. Dr. Porter did not hesitate from the first to denounce slavery as a system, and to dwell, in his sermons and other discourses, on the evils which must inevitably attend it ; but he did not accept the abstract theories adopted by the originators of the movement, nor did he sympathize with their indis- criminating denunciations, and for these reasons did not join himself to their association. It so happened that his parish became one of the minor, but very active, centres for Antislavery propagandism. Some of the prominent men in the church were zealous propagandists of the extremest doctrines. Not a little money was contributed to the cause. Frequent conventions were held, at which " laggard churches " and " temporizing ministers" were unceremoniously rebuked. An earnest and persistent effort was made to bring into use very extreme doc- trines as tests of Christian fellowship, and to bring all the churches to utter protests, by resolution and by other methods, to debar from the communion of the Lord's Supper those who could not purge themselves from all complicity with slavery. A majority of votes was obtained in Dr. Porter's own church for a series of resolu- tions of this description, and the pastor was requested to announce them at every communion service. These proceedings were offensive to his conscience. He regarded these votes as doing violence to the teachings of the New Testament and to the very spirit of Christianity. With great boldness, but with still greater patience and gentleness, he reasoned and expostulated, but failed to convince. Perhaps no phase
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of his life as a pastor was more fruitful in Christian instructiveness than the manly dignity and patient sweetness which he manifested during these trying years in which old age was beginning to gather around him, and its sombre darkness was made more gloomy by a wild storm like this. The storm passed away; the last of its lingering clouds vanished into air, and long before his death the entire church and parish rejoiced in the mild and benignant rays of the sun which had blessed them so long, and shone out again before its final setting.
In respect to revivals of religion, the pastorate of Dr. Porter was somewhat peculiar. For the first fifteen years there was no great awakening to religious things. Of a population of 2,400, only 200 were communicants, and of these very few belonged to the gay and wealthy families of the village. In 1821, in connection with a general awaken- ing in the State, and with the preaching of Dr. Nettleton the evangelist, some 240 were added to the church. Such special movements occurred very frequently after this until the pastor's death, as in 1823, 1826, 1828, 1831, 1834, 1838, 1840, 1843, 1851, and not infrequently after- ward. In the first fifty years of this pastorate 1,138 were received as communicants, 866 on profession of faith.
Dr. Porter's relations to the public deserve some notice. Though he seemed to be chiefly occupied with his own flock, and more than usually engrossed by its duties and cares, he was eminently a public soul. He cared earnestly and zealously for the whole Church of Christ.
Most of the movements of modern benevolence originated during his pastorate. For many years the only collections taken up in the church were those authorized by law, for the help of feeble congre- gations in Connecticut, and that of a Female Cent Society, cach sub- scriber to which made an annual collection of fifty cents, and an annual contribution for the churches in the New Settlements. Every other contribution for the progress of the kingdom of God came into being under his eye. Almost every one was greeted by his sympathy. He gave liberally himself to these associations after a fixed method, and he solemnly impressed upon his people the duty of abundant gifts. He cared for every one of these societies which had won his confi- dence, as though it were under his personal care, and recognized a response to its claims as part of his duty as pastor. With the mission- ary enterprises of the American Board, which was organized at his house, and of the American Home Missionary Society, he maintained the closest sympathy, and by his influence large sums of money were directed to their treasuries. In the establishment of the Doctrinal Tract Society, of the " Monthly Christian Spectator," and of the " Con- necticut Observer," in the founding of the Theological Seminary at New Haven, in the raising of money for Yale College, he was most efficient, and considered that all these services to the Church of Christ were but the natural and necessary outflows of his office as a pastor.
His increased catholicity of feeling in respect to differences in doc- trine and rite and organization was manifest in his later years. The sturdy pertinacity with which he stood almost alone among his peers in defending the rights of his association to judge of the orthodoxy of Dr. Bushnell, and the catholic construction with which he was disposed to measure and interpret his doctrinal expositions, were evidences of
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his sincere concern for the freedom of the ministry as essential to the life of the church, and of the duty of the ministry to enforce no divisive tests of communion.
His end was eminently peaceful. His remains were providentially detained from burial, by a severe storm, in the old church in which he had preached for sixty years, where during a dark and dismal night they were watched by a few faithful men of his flock. On the follow- ing morning the sun came forth and he was laid in the grave, near the river that waters the meadow over which he had so often feasted his eyes with so much delight, and over against the hills beyond which he had so long looked for the city of God.
Oct. 9, 1861, the Rev. Levi Leonard Paine was ordained and installed colleague pastor. He was dismissed March 22, 1870. The Rev. James Fiske Merriam was ordained and installed Sept. 13, 1871. He was dismissed July 1, 1873. The Rev. Edward Alfred Smith was installed May 5, 1874.
In 1810 Mr. Solomon Langdon gave two thousand dollars to the Ecclesiastical Society as a fund for the support of the gospel. In 1820 he gave in addition five hundred dollars, on condition that the society would increase the amount to ten thousand dollars, which was accom- plished. In March, 1823, he made another subscription of three hun- dred dollars, to increase the fund to twelve thousand dollars. In his will, after certain bequests, he left to the society the residue of his estate, amounting to some thousands of dollars. These bequests were the fruits of his own industry. He died May 10, 1835.
In 1825 a Methodist Episcopal church was organized, which in 1834 erected a house of worship. An Episcopal Mission (St. James) has held stated worship since Oct. 5, 1873.
For nearly forty years Roman Catholic worship has been observed in the village. In March, 1868, the edifice which is now occupied was purchased, and subsequently fitted for Christian worship.
The moral and religious history of the original parish church and the community in which it has been the central force may be summed up as follows : From 1640 to 1700 it was trained under the teachings and animated by the fervor of Roger Newton and Samuel Hooker, - the first the son-in-law, the second the son, of the eminent Thomas Hooker. The ministry of the latter continned for nearly forty years, and was elevating and quickening in an eminent degree, making itself felt on all the extensive town, and all the infant parishes into which it was then and subsequently divided. From 1706 till 1751 it was favored by the solid and sagacious Whitman, who administered the so-called Halfway Covenant, if we may judge from the records of the church, in an energetic spirit, and saved the community from the disastrous divisions and contro- versies which followed the Great Awakening. He was followed by the fervent and florid Pitkin, who sympathized with Whitefield, invited him to preach in his pulpit, and long after his dismissal, till his death, in 1811, was a living example of a godly life. His ministry was quicken- ing to many ; although it is evident, from many indications, that in con- nection with the demoralization of the wars for nearly forty years and the attraction of French Infidelity, and the steady accession of wealth, many influences were unfavorable to earnest Christianity. From 1790
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to 1800 there were many active efforts for the revival of spiritual religion, in which Mr. Olcott probably sympathized, and which partially accounted for the opposition which finally drove him away. The same antipathies were aroused by the fervid and pointed preaching of the fervent Griffin (then in his youth and afterward so distinguished as a preacher), which excited the hostility of a large party in the parish. The gentle influence of Mr. Washburn doubtless preserved the parish from division and from sectarian strife. During his ministry, as has been noted elsewhere, there were two remarkable religious awakenings. During the first fifteen years of Dr. Porter there was no general relig- ious revival. The village grew gay and wealthy, and the embargo and the war occupied the attention of the community. Two years of fatal disease also agitated and occupied the people. In the mean time the new missionary movements, at home and abroad, with the Sunday school (1819), were introduced with reasonable energy. The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions was organized at the house of the pastor in 1810, with Governor Treadwell as its president. In 1820 there was a general religious awakening, which almost revolutionized the once gay and pleasure-loving village, and added two hundred or more to the communion of the church, - one hundred and fifteen on one occasion. This was followed by many similar experiences at very frequent intervals. In connection with these influences, the various movements for moral reformation excited the attention of the com- munity, kindled their zeal, were most liberally supported by their money, and occasionally aroused the animosities of hostile parties. The temperance movement, beginning about 1825, finally succeeded in putting an end to the use of distilled liquors and cider as a beverage, and the destruction of as many as fifteen or twenty distilleries of cider-brandy. The Antimasonic movement was also once a prominent interest in the town, - more against the recollections of previous generations, however, than any very present interest in Masonry as an active power. The Antislavery movement in its very early stages excited no little interest, and divided the church and community into what in any other place would have been called active parties.1 This was owing in part to the very early interest taken in the movement by the Rev. Amos A. Phelps, a native of the town, and a brilliant and able speaker. The differences of opinion, with the criminations and recriminations, were not all of the happiest influence. Much that was said and done, if it were recorded, would be a history of wasted energy which tended to little good either at home or abroad. That the church and parish survived all storms of feeling, and never was sundered or half-cloven by permanent parties, is an argument for wonder and thankfulness.
Indeed, the unity of the old church and parish for nearly two hundred and fifty years past, which is scarcely now broken by sectarian divisions, with their manifold inconveniences and scandals, is a marked feature of its almost unique moral and religious history.
1 The fact is worthy of record here that a sermon was preached in the meeting-house to " the Corporation of Freemen," in Farmington, at their meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 20, 1774, by Levi Hart, of Preston, in which the slave trade, as it then was practised in Connecticut, was boldly assailed, and slaveholding was severely criticised. This Levi Hart was doubtless a descendant of the original settler, Deacon Steven Hart.
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The interest of the town in general and special education may not be omitted. We have already referred to the early action of the town. In 1772 the parish was divided into separate school districts, and a petition was presented to the legislature to authorize each to tax itself to manage its own concerns. It was not till 1795 that the legislature constituted special school societies throughout the State. In the year following, this newly formed school society digested a system of regu- lations for the visitation and discipline of the schools. In 1798 a bill with similar provisions was reported by John Treadwell, of this town, afterward Governor, and adopted for the entire State of Connecticut. The town deserves especial honor as the place in which the school system of Connecticut was first matured and adopted.
The town of Farmington provided very early and very liberally for a special town fund for the support of public schools in all its societies, by the sale of lands reserved for highways. In the old meeting-house were held the annual school exhibitions, in which the highest classes from all the schools, cach in turn, appeared on the stage to try its skill in reading, spelling, and defining before the assembled community. The late Professor Olmsted records his remembrance of one of these exhibitions which must have taken place before 1809. In February, 1793, it was voted that John Treadwell, John Mix, Timothy Pitkin, Jr., and Seth Lee be a committee to devise a plan for the formation of a new school in the society, to give instruction in some of the higher branches of science not usually taught in common schools, and report. There is no record that any report was ever made. It is probable that the fierce ecclesiastical strife which had begun to agitate the community preoccupied the attention of the public.
In the year 1816 the academy building was erected by an associa- tion of gentlemen who contributed a thousand dollars, to which the society added some six or seven hundred, thereby securing to itself the use of a convenient lecture-room, and to the community apartments for a higher school. Such a school was maintained with great success for some twenty years, and was of great service to this and other towns. To this movement may be directly traced all that has been subsequently done for special education in the village.
Of this academy the most distinguished principal was Deacon Simeon Hart, who not only devoted himself with singular painstaking and probity to the education of the youth committed to his care, but was in all his years of residence in this town a public-spirited citizen and an ardent servant of Christ and his church.
The Old Red College, as it was called, should not be forgotten, as its inmates at one time made themselves very conspicuous in the com- munity. It stood on the ground now occupied by the Female Seminary, and was originally the residence of Colonel Noadiah Hooker. His pure and noble-minded son, Edward Hooker, used it for lodgings for a num- ber of students from the Southern and Southwestern States, whom for several years he prepared for college and for public or professional life.
In the palmy days of the village these well-dressed and showy young men, ten to fifteen in number, for several years made themselves con- spicuous at all times, and especially on Sundays, when with iron-shod boot-heels they tramped to the highest pew in the gallery and made themselves the observed of all observers.
VOL. II. - 13.
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD COUNTY.
In the year 1844 Miss Sarah Porter opened a school for a few girls and young ladies of the village, with two or three from other towns. Out of this beginning has grown the very flourishing school which still continues.
Social or public libraries have been successfully sustained in the village and some of their outlying hamlets. One of these for a long time satisfied the literary wants of the north end of the village, but was subsequently absorbed into what was called the Phoenix Library, which has existed since carly in the present century. There was also a Mechan- ics' Library in the village, and still another library on the Great Plain. One of these libraries, probably the oldest, originated in a horse-shed with a few boys, who organized a plan of joint ownership and exchange for the very few juvenile books which came within their reach. It be- came a very flourishing institution, and was for many years sustained by a large number of proprietors. They met for many years on the first Sunday evening of every month at the house of Deacon Elijah Porter. This library meeting was the village lyceum, at which its educated and professional men and the more intelligent citizens would freely compare their views in respect to the affairs of the village and the nation, to which thoughtful and curious boys listened with unno- ticed attention. After this free interchange of opinion, which went on while the books were received which had been taken at the previous meeting, at the appointed hour the drawing began, which was now and then interrupted by an active bidding for any book which was especially desired.
On the records of the Farmington Library Company there appears on page 1 a " Catalogue of the Library begun in 1785." On the 1st of January, 1801, without any apparent change in the organization, it began to be called the Monthly Library. From 1796 to 1813 Elijah Porter was the librarian. During the year 1813 the office was filled by Luther Seymour, after which the library was dissolved, and on the 12th of February, 1814, the Phoenix Library was formed by a selection of the more valuable books from the old library. Elijah Porter was again appointed librarian, and retained the office until March 17, 1826, when the Village Library, of which Captain Selah Porter had been librarian since January, 1817, was united with the Phoenix, and both remained under the care of Captain Porter until he resigned, April 4, 1835, and Simeon Hart, Jr., was appointed in his place. It appears by the record that "The Farmington Library Company was formed Feb. 18, 1839, designed to supersede the Phoenix Library Company, which proved defective in its organization and was accordingly dissolved."
The old library still survives in the hands of a very few of the original proprietors. It is an instructive memorial of the past as well as a valuable collection of standard books. It is to be hoped that it may never be dispersed, but may become the property of the town. It would not be honorable to the town or the village at a time when so many towns in New England are collecting and supporting public libra- ries, if these books should be sold for a pittance, and its standard histo- ries and solid treatises should be distributed no one knows whithier.
Among the most distinguished men who have been resident in Farmington, two deserve especial notice ; namely, the Hon. John Tread- well and Dr. Eli Todd. Dr. Noah Porter writes thus of Dr. Treadwell :
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" The Hon. John Treadwell was born in Farmington, Nov. 23, 1745. His parents, Ephraim and Mary Treadwell, were highly respected for their piety. Having finished his education at Yale College, where he was graduated in 1767, he pursued a thorough course of study in legal science, but such was his aversion to professional life, that he never offered himself for examination at the bar. In the autumn of 1776 he was chosen a representative of the town to the General Assembly ; and by successive elections from that time till 1785 he was
John Treadwell
continually, with the exception of one session, a member of the house. He was then elected one of the Assistants, and to that office was annually chosen till 1798, when he was appointed Lieutenant-Governor. In the autumn of 1809, on the decease of Governor Trumbull, he was chosen by the legislature to the office of Governor ; and by a renewal of the appointment at their session in May, he con- tinued in the discharge of the high duties of that office the following year. At this time he had been twenty years judge of the Court of Probate, three years judge of the County Court, twenty years a judge in the Supreme Court of Errors, and nineteen years a member of the corporation of Yale College. The greater part of this time he was also one of the prudential committee of that corpora- tion, and took a zealous part in whatever pertained to the prosperity of the semi- nary. Among other public services, it also deserves particular mention that he had an early agency in negotiating the sale of the New Connecticut lands, and in constituting from the sale our school fund. Having, in connection with others, accomplished that laborious and difficult trust, he was appointed one of the board of managers ; and in this office was continued till 1810, when, by a different arrangement, it was superseded. He drew the bill for the application of the fund, and is probably to be considered more directly than any other person the father of the system of common-school education in this State. In these various offices his reputation was unsullied. He was known to act uprightly, and was generally acknowledged to act judiciously. Probably no man was better acquainted with the internal policy of the State ; and having begun his fostering care over it when it was in the cradle of its independent existence, and been almost exclusively devoted to its concerns, in offices so various, and some of them so important, for thirty years, he contributed to its order and improve- ment in a degree which, in other periods and circumstances, would have been hardly possible for any man. In the church his labors were scarcely less impor- tant than in the State. In the church of Farmington, of which he became a mem- her in the twenty-seventh year of his life, his counsels and example always, and more especially in several trying periods of its history, were exceedingly valued. More than twenty years he was a deacon of that church, and while adorned with the highest dignities of the State, he continued to perform the ordinary duties of that office. Of ecclesiastical councils he was a frequent and useful member. Of the Missionary Society of Connecticut he was one of the original trustees ; of these trustees he was the first, chairman ; and this station by successive ap- pointments he continued to fill till on account of advanced years he declined a reappointment. He was also one of the Commissioners who formed the Con- stitution of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, and who devised the incipient measures for carrying into effect the important design of their commission. Of that Board he was the first President, and in that office he continued till his death. No magistrate of New England probably, since the time of Haynes and Winthrop, engaged a greater measure of confidence in the
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church, was more useful in it, or more venerated by its ministers. He was not a man of brilliant genius or extended erudition or commanding elocution. He had no superior advantages of birth, of patronage, of personal attractions, or courtly address. He had no peculiar power of delighting the social circle with the sprightliness of his fancy, nor of swaying public assemblies by the eloquence of his appeals. He was not, in the common import of the term, a popular man ; yet he had an intellectual and moral greatness which carried him superior to all obstacles in the path to eminence ; so that with no advantages above what thou- sands enjoyed, he united in himself, in a perfection rarely found, the characters of a jurist, a civilian, and a divine. In the ordinary scenes, as well as in the higher sphere of life, his piety shone with steady lustre. His attendance upon divine ordinances was steady and exemplary. The retired circle for prayer and Chris- tian conference, as well as the solemn assembly, could command his presence and engage his warm affections. Familiar as divine truth was to his contempla- tions, he was always entertained and often melted under the plainest and most unadorned exhibitions of it. He could safely appeal to all who knew him, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not by fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, he had his conversation in the world. With serene hope in Christ, he died Aug. 18, 1823, in the seventy-eighth year of his age."
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