USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > The memorial history of Hartford County, Connecticut, 1633-1884, Vol. II > Part 51
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Beginning in August, 1664, the Rev. Thomas Buckingham preached one or two months. He was settled at Saybrook in 1670, where he became one of the founders of Yale College. The Rev. Jonathan Willoughby, of Charlestown, Mass., preached from September, 1664, to May, 1665, when he went to Haddam. The Rev. Samuel Wake- man, of Fairfield, preached in the spring of 1666. The Rev. Samuel Stone, son of the reverend gentleman of the same name at Hartford, was the next settled minister. He preached from some time in 1666 until June, 1669, - part of the time as colleague of the Rev. Gershom Bulkeley. He was accidentally drowned at Hartford, in 1693, while intoxicated. In 1667 the Rev. Gershom Bulkeley, one of the most distinguished men of his day, came from New London church to become Gershom Bulkiley/ the pastor at Wethersfield. He was the son of the Rev. Peter Bulkeley, of Concord, Mass. He had been graduated at Harvard College twelve years before, and had married a daughter of President Chauncey. Mr. Bulkeley was learned not only in theology, but also in law and in medicine and surgery. He was both chaplain and surgeon in the Indian campaign of 1675-1676. His health failed him in 1676, and he thereafter devoted his time mainly to medical and legal matters. He died at Glastonbury in December, 1713, while on a visit to his dangh- ter, the widow Dorothy Treat. His remains were brought to Wethers- field, and a stone table was placed over them, whereon a lengthy inscription may still be read.
The Rev. Joseph Rowlandson, the minister at Lancaster, Mass., a native of England, had, in February, JOSEER RowLandson. 1676, suffered the loss of his house by fire, at the hands of the Indians, and they had captured his wife and three children. One of the latter died, and the others, with their
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mother, were ransomed. In April of the following year he came to Wethersfield, where he preached until his death, in November, 1678.
The Rev. John Woodbridge, the next incumbent, was settled in 1679. He was a son of the minister of the same name at Newbury, John Wood Bridge. Mass., and a grandson of Gov- ernor Dudley. He died in 1691. A brother, Timothy, was minister of the First Church at Hartford.
The Rev. William Partridge was called, as an assistant to Mr. Wood- bridge, in 1691. He had been graduated at Harvard College two years before. He died in September, 1693, aged twenty-four years. He was, we suppose, a son of Colonel Samuel Partridge, of Hatfield, Mass.
With the Rev. Stephen Mix, in 1693, a long and prosperous term of pastoral charge was begun. He was the son of Thomas Mix, of New Haven, and had been graduated from Harvard but three years before his call to Wethersfield. The earliest records of the church, beginning in 1697, are in his handwriting, - partly in shorthand. In 1696 he married Mary, the daughter of the Rev. Solo- Steph: Mise mon Stoddard, of Northampton, Mass. His house was one of the six which were fortified in 1704. After forty-four years of service, Mr. Mix died, in 1738. The late Chief Judge, Stephen Mix Mitchell, was a great-grandson of Mr. Mix, and the writer, Donald Grant Mitchell, is one of his descendants.
The Rev. James Lockwood, born in Norwalk in 1714, succeeded Mr. Mix in 1738. He was a scholarly gentleman, and many of his sermons were printed. He was offered the presidency of the college at James Lock wood Princeton, to succeed President Jon- athan Edwards, which he declined. He was chosen President of Yale College, which office he also declined. His fine dwelling-house, still standing was built and presented to him by his grateful parishioners. He died in 1772. President Stiles says of him that " he was a Calvinist, inclined to the new divinity." He was potent, so says his epitaph, -
" The Bold to curb, and the Licentious awe,
And turn the tide of Souls another way.'
We come now to the name of one whose words from the pulpit were heard by some who are now living. We refer to the Rev. John Marsh, S.T.D. He was a son of David Marsh, of Haverhill, Mass. When called to Wethersfield he was tutor at Harvard, where he had been gradu- ated in 1761. He John March, Pastor. was settled in Jan- nary, 1774, and remained in the Wethersfield pul- pit until his death, in 1821, at the age of seventy-nine years. His congregation was perhaps the largest and most influential in the State. There were times, it is said when it contained as many as thirty college-bred attendants. He was graceful and courtly. Mr. Sprague (in his " Annals of the American Pulpit ") says of him : " Perhaps he
SILAS DEANE.
REV. JOHN MARSH.
ELISHIA WILLIAMS.
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wore the last white wig in New England." Mrs. Sigourney says of him : " His hospitality was beautiful." One of his daughters married the late Rev. O. E. Dagget, D.D., and another the late Hon. Richard H. Dana, Jr. Washington listened to one or two of his sermons on the occasion of the military conference at Wethersfield in 1781.
The Rev. Caleb Jewett Tenney, D.D., was a colleague pastor with Dr. Marsh for the last five years of the latter's term. He was born in Hollis, New Hampshire, in 1780, and was graduated at Dartmouth College at the head of his class in 1801; Daniel Webster
having been a member of the same class. He had preached in Newport before coming to Wethersfield. From the latter place he was regret- fully dismissed in 1841. He died at Northampton, Mass., in 1847. Since Dr. Tenney's ministry the following-named have succeeded him : The Rev's Charles J. Warren, as colleague, from July, 1835, to Feb- ruary, 1837 ; Robert Southgate, from Portland, Maine, as colleague, from February, 1838, - as sole pastor, from January, 1841, to Novem- ber, 1843; Mark Tucker, D.D., from October, 1845, to March, 1856 ; Willis S. Colton, from September, 1856, to July, 1866 ; A. C. Adams, from March, 1868, to May, 1879; Lewis W. Hicks, from September, 1881, to the present time.
We turn from the consideration of the ministers of the First Con- gregational Church in Wethersfield to an examination of its houses of worship. These were, successively, the " Meeting Houses " of the town until after the adoption of our present constitution. When the first meeting-house was built is, and probably always will be, a matter of conjecture. The writer has heretofore assumed, in order to be on the safer side, that the one in which seats were ordered, in March, 1646-7, to be put up, by a town vote of that date, - the earliest vote preserved, - was the first meeting-house, and that its construction was begun in 1645. But this may have been, as the late Nathaniel Goodwin, of Hartford, supposed, the second meeting-house; and he had given much time to the study of Wethersfield's early church history. Certain it is that in 1647 a meeting-house was completed. It was a small structure, of logs or timber, the interstices whereof were "underdaubed" with clay. In September, 1647, it was clapboarded, and previously had been wain- scoted. It had a north and a south door, was square in plan, and it had a belfry, which contained a bell in 1657, or earlier. In 1675 gal- leries were built in it. A " guard " of armed men was kept constantly in attendance. Its meetings were convoked at times by the bell, and sometimes by the drum. It was demolished in 1688.
The next meeting-house was built, or begun, by the town, in 1685, near where its predecessor stood. It was fifty feet square, with gal- leries (built in 1702), and an upper room, which was used for school purposes. It had dormer windows. The old bell was used in it until 1688, when a new one was mounted, made in part from the old one,
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD COUNTY.
and stairs were built leading to it. In 1716 additional seats were built for students of Yale College, - one branch of that institution being then maintained in Wethersfield.
The next meeting-house, which was the one now in use as the church edifice of the First Congregational (or Ecclesiastical) Society, was begun in 1761. This venerable structure stands some four or five rods northeasterly from the site of that of 1685. A hundred years ago it was noted for its well-trained and cultivated choir, which, President Dwight says, exhibited more taste and skill than he had ever observed elsewhere. Within its walls Washington and the elder Adams, before either was President, attended divine service ; and other distinguished people from abroad have accounted it an honor to occupy a seat in one of its pews. The building is modelled after the style of the Old South Church at Boston. In 1838 its interior was modified by the removal of its sounding-board, and by the substitution of slips for its ancient pews, besides changes in the pulpit and galleries. In 1882- 1883 there was a general renovation of its interior, and considerable change in its exterior ; and the result was to render it more beautiful, although at a sacrifice of some of its most interesting features.
The first preaching done in Wethersfield by a Separatist was prob- ably by the Rev. Ebenezer Frothingham, in 1746. He had been or- dained there in October of that year. The next year he suffered imprisonment for five months " for preaching without the consent of the minister of the parish." There were but few members of Mr. Frothingham's society, and he soon divided his time between Wethers- field and Middletown. At the latter place, in 1754, he established the South Church. He died there in 1798, aged eighty-one years.
In 1784 Francis Hanmer, the "Elder" of the Congregational Church (or Presbyterian, as it sometimes called itself), with Joseph and Sim- eon Flower, John and Simeon Deming, John Goodrich, James Hanmer, John Stewart, and Abijah Tryon, memorialized the regular church for abatement of their church taxes, because they " soberly dissent from meeting with the Congregation for public worship on the Sabbath." The old society voted that the memorialists, as Separates, were entitled to the relief. This was the origin of the Baptist society in Weth- ersfield, unless we date from the time of services being first held by these Separates, in 1782. In 1816 the Baptists built their first house of worship, the only one in the township of that denomi- nation. This was succeeded by the present one, in 1876, on the same site.
The first resident pastor was the Rev. William Bentley, who held his office from October, 1815, to October, 1822. He was born at Newport, Rhode Island, and came to Wethersfield from Worcester, Mass. He was succeeded by the Rev. Seth Ewer for one year, after which there was no resident pastor until 1834, when the Rev. John Hol- brook was installed ; but he held office for about eight months only. A vacancy now existed until 1839, when the Rev. William Reid, a Scotchman, held the office for two years. From 1842 to 1844 the Rev. Henry Kenyon was the pastor. The Rev. Henry I. Smith followed, for about one year. The Rev. Cyrus Miner was pastor from 1846 to 1847, the Rev. Henry Bromley succeeding until April, 1849. The Rev. Pier- pont Brockett began in April, 1849, and held office for three years.
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The Rev. H. B. Whittington was the next pastor, from May, 1852, to October, 1853 ; the Rev. William S. Phillips, Sr., from June, 1860, to February, 1862; the Rev. Amasa Howard, from January, 1864, to April, 1866 ; the Rev. George W. Kinney, from April, 1868, to Janu- ary, 1869 ; the Rev. Joseph Burnett, from October, 1870, to November, 1872 ; the Rev. Henry G. Smith, from March, 1873, for one year : the Rev. William S. Phillips, Jr., from April, 1874, for one year ; the Rev. A. Randlett, from May, 1875, to June, 1877 ; the Rev. A. S. Burrows, from Angust, 1877, to November, 1878. The Rev. E. P. Bond, the pres- ent pastor, succeeded in May, 1879. To him the writer is indebted for information as to this church.
The first small beginning of Methodism in Wethersfield dates per- haps from October, 1740, when George Whitefield preached under the great elm-tree in Broad Street. But the first distinctively Methodist sermon there was by the Virginian, Jesse Lee, a pioneer exhorter, in March, 1790. The noted Maryland preacher, Freeborn Garrettson, preached there in July, the same year. From this time until 1821 occasional sermons were given by itinerant preachers. At this time a " circuit," including Wethersfield, New Britain, and Kensington, was formed, under the charge of the Rev. William S. (" Billy ") Pease. Some excitement - almost a riot, in fact - ensued upon permission being granted to the Methodists to worship in Academy Hall in 1823. In 1824 they built their first house of worship, but it remained in an unfinished condition for some years. In 1882 the building was entirely remodelled.
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To the Rev. George L. Coburn the writer is indebted for the following list of its pastors : Rev's William S. Pease and Robert Seney, 1821-1822 : John Lucky, 1823; Smith Dayton, 1824; J. Z. Nichols and S. L. Stillman, 1825-1826 ; Eli Deniston, 1827 ; John Parker, 1828 ; Valentine Buck, 1829; Lyman A. Sanford, 1830 ; L. C. Cheney, 1831 ; Leman Andrews, 1832; E. L. Griswold, 1833- 1834 ; Daniel Burroughs, 1835 ; Z. N. Lewis, 1836 ; Gad N. Smith, 1837 ; Leonidas Rosser, 1838-1839 ; II. Husted, 1840 ; Laban Clark, 1841 ; Sylvester H. Clark, 1842-1843 ; William L. Stillman, 1844- 1845 ; Miles N. Omstead, 1846 ; Nathaniel Kellogg, 1847 ; David Miller, 1848 ; James T. Bell, 1849-1850 ; R. D. Kirby, 1851 ; Johnson C. Griswold, 1854; Charles C. Burr, 1855; Charles K. True, 1856; Raphael Gilbert, 1858-1859 : Isaac Sanford, 1860 ; James Garrett, 1861 ; D. C. Hughes, 1862; B. Whitman Chase, 1863; G. P. Ells- worth and J. G. Griswold, 1864-1865 ; Salmon Jones, 1866 ; George E. Reed and E. McChesney, 1867 ; George E. Reed and - Rich- ards, 1868 ; A. Palmer and George Woodruff, 1869 ; Perry Chandler, 1870; Joseph B. Shepherd, 1871 ; James Nixon, 1872 ; Charles H. Hemstreet, 1873-1874; A. O. Abbott, 1875; Albert Nash, 1876 ; C. J. North, 1877 ; J. B. Shepherd, 1878; David Nash, 1879; George L. Coburn, 1880. The Rev. F. S. Townsend is the present pastor.
The Rev. Samuel Johnson, who in 1724 became the first rector of the " first edifice for the Church of England in the colony," at Strat- ford, visited Wethersfield in 1729, with the purpose of establishing an Episcopal church there ; but his efforts were nearly fruitless. The earliest organized society of Protestant Episcopalians in Wethersfield was in the Newington section, in 1797. A church edifice was built in
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD COUNTY.
the south end of that parish ; but the society, which was the offspring of dissensions in the Congregational Church there, soon became dis- organized, and its house of worship was sold and demolished.1 In 1840 or 1841 the Rev. John Williams, now the Bishop of Connecti- cut, preached a single sermon at Wethersfield; but it was not till January, 1868, that stated services were instituted. A formal organi- zation was effected in October, 1869, under the name of Trinity Church Parish. It was under the general rectorship of the Rev. Henry W. Nelson, of Hartford, until April, 1875, when the Rev. Howard Clapp, of Hartford, was invited for one year. In April, 1876, he was elected (the first) resident rector, which office he held until 1883. In the mean time, in 1873, its church edifice was built. The Rev. H. A. Adams is now the rector.
In 1876 the Rev. Lawrence Walsh, the priest then in charge of St. Peter's Church, Hartford, organized the first Catholic church in Weth- ersfield, under the title of the " Sacred Heart of Jesus." It is included in the parish of East Hartford. A house of worship was completed, and dedicated in May, 1881.
It is not within the province of this sketch to give an account of other parishes formed, wholly or in part, out of the ancient township and parish of Wethersfield. We will, however, add a few facts as to some of them.
Glastonbury became a township and parish in October, 1693. Per- mission therefor had been granted in 1690, but the condition precedent was not performed until three years later. That condition was, that a meeting-house should first be completed. This was consummated in October, 1693 ; and a minister, the Rev. Timothy Stevens, was then for the first time settled there.
Newington parish, including a large section now in Berlin, was es- tablished in 1713. For information as to its ecclesiastical history, the reader is referred to the historical sketch of that township in this volume.
To the historians of Farmington and New Britain the reader must look for some account of Great Swamp parish, part of which (Stanley Quarter) was in Wethersfield. Its first meeting-house, on Christian Lane, just west of the town line, was built in 1709 by William Blin, of Wethersfield ; and its first minister, the Rev. William Burnham, was from the same town. The account of Berlin, in this volume, records the origin of Kensington and Worthington parishes. Part of Wethers- field (now in Beckley Quarter) belonged to each in turn. And the present town-hall of Berlin, which is bisected by the old line between Wethersfield and Middletown, is the old first meeting-house of Worth- ington, built in 1774 on land donated mainly by Wethersfield. For some account of Stepney parish, the reader is referred to our sketch of Rocky Hill, in this volume.
The town of Wethersfield controlled the schools within her limits until the formation of Newington parish, in 1713; or, in fact, until 1717, when, as to that section, the control fell to that parish. Again, in 1722, Stepney parish having been formed, the schools there passed
1 See History of Newington.
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into the hands of that parish. The rest of the township (exclusive of Beckley Quarter) took upon itself the name of the First Society in 1722, and, as a parish, conducted the schools within its limits. Beckley Quarter, being in a parish that was partly in other towns, was mainly, as to school matters, under the care of the town of Wethersfield until the incorporation of Berlin.
In 1746 the First Society divided itself for school purposes into two precincts, to be under the society's control, as before. The dividing line was coincident with that separating the district of the first trainband from that of the second one in 1697; and substantially the same as that between the present Broad Street and High Street school districts. In 1797 the First School Society was formed, having the same limits as the First Society, or Parish. The first school district in Wethersfield was in Beckley Quarter, by special act of the legislature, in 1757. It had exercised separate jurisdiction from 1748, by special vote of the town.
The First Society had for several years endeavored to divide itself into districts, pursuant to the act of 1766, but in vain. In 1772, upon petition of Hezekiah May, Ezekiel Porter, and others, the legislature made the division. Broad Street (including the present South Hill, Griswoldville, and part of the West Hill district) was made the First district ; the North Brick was made the Second, and the High Street the Third.
In 1780, upon the petition of Samnel Wolcott, Josiah Robbins, Tim- othy Russell, and others to the legislature, the Fourth, or West Hill distriet was formed from parts of the First and Second distriets. In 1811, upon the application of Abner Mosely, Samuel W. Williams, and Joseph Webb, the First district voted to divide. In 1815 the legisla- ture confirmed its action. By this division the Fifth, or South district was formed, and the name of the First was changed to Broad Street. The South was enlarged by extension to the town line south, in 1858. In 1837 the Fourth, or West Hill district was divided, and the Sixth, or Southwest (Griswoldville) school district was formed. This district was enlarged in 1850 so as to include some territory in the township of Rocky Hill. In 1822 the line between the Second and Fourth districts was changed by the annexation of part of the latter to the former. In 1810 the Fourth district was enlarged so as to include the two streets " on the western borders " of the same.
In 1797, the year before the act was passed authorizing the forma- tion of school societies, the First Society, so far as it could legally do so, separated into two organizations, having the same territorial limits, the one called the First School Society and the other the First Society ; and ultimately the latter became the First Ecclesiastical Society. Thereafter the merely parochial functions were attended to in meetings of the First Ecclesiastical Society until about the time of the adoption of our State constitution, when this society, practically at least, ceased to have territorial limits. But as to schools, burying-grounds, pounds, etc., the First School Society assumed, and still has, the general con- trol, subject to such losses of jurisdiction as have been occasioned by the law of 1794, conferring autonomy upon school districts.
At Rocky Hill (Stepney parish ) a branch school, under the auspices of the town, was begun in 1694. This was more than thirty years VOL. II,-20.
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before the organization of that section into a parish, and about twenty years before any school was kept at Newington ; although the latter, as a parish, is the older by about fourteen years. In 1712 the peo- ple from Sam Dix's (now Russell Adams's) corner, southward to Middletown line, formed in a school precinet ; but there was no legal organization till 1726, when Stepney parish was formed. In 1735 the West Farmers began to agitate for school facilities ; but at this time the only favor granted to them by Stepney parish was permission to have a school at West Rocky Hill a part of the year.
In 1752 three territorial sections were formed. Another section, the central, was established in 1779. These were all acts done by or with the authority of the parish. In 1782 a petition was preferred to the legislature by John Robbins, Giles Deming, Charles Butler, and Isaac Deming, all of Stepney parish, for the establishment of school districts. The action thereon was favorable, and three districts were formed. The First corresponded with that now called the Middle district, very nearly ; the Second, with the present South, so called : and the Third, with the present North. In 1791 that part of the parish lying west of the three districts above mentioned was made the Fourth, or Western district. This included all of West Rocky Hill excepting that part in the Beckley Quarter district. In 1850 a part of the Griswoldville school district was annexed to this district. These seem to be all the changes that have been made in school-district lines in Stepney parish and Rocky Hill township.
At Newington the schools, as at Stepney, antedate the districts of the parish ; but they do not, as in the latter case, antedate the parish itself. The first mention of a school there occurs in 1723, some ten years after the parish was constituted.1
Much difficulty attends the inquiry where the earliest schools were kept. This is because, first, they were in many instances held in hired apartments ; second, they were often in school-houses standing in the highways, so that no record of the site selected would be made. The first school edifice in Wethersfield stood next south of where the Silas Deane house is. When it was built does not appear; but in 1660 it had become unfit for further use. Mr. Thomas Lord, of Hart- ford, afterward famous as a bone-setter, was at this time the town's " schoolmaster." When he began to teach does not appear ; but it was before 1658. A vote was then passed giving him £25 per annum, and the use of a house and meadow, as formerly ; so it appears that he had begun some years earlier than 1658.
In 1661 Mr. Eleazer Kimberly, afterward colonial secretary, was chosen the schoolmaster. In 1665 a writing-school was established. In the same year Mr. Josiah Willard, a distinguished man, first of the name in Wethersfield, was chosen schoolmaster. Two years later John Coultman, who was also the miller, was elected to the same position. At this time the vote was, "to provide a house to keep school in." Perhaps the house was Coultman's, on the north end, and the east side of Broad Street. In 1668 Samuel Butler, son of Richard, of Hartford, was chosen schoolmaster. Mr. Kimberly was again the teacher in 1677. At this time Lieutenant Thomas Hollister, Mr. John
1 See Newington.
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Robbins, Joseph Edwards, Benjamin Churchill, and Sergeant Samuel Wright, as a committee of the town, built a school-house about where the Congregational chapel now is; certainly, the horse-sheds of the meeting-house adjoined it on the east. Mr. Kimberly continued to be the teacher until 1689; about which time he removed across the river.
In 1733 the First Society voted to rebuild on the site of the "old " structure ; meaning, as we suppose, the one built in 1677. Whether a house was then built does not appear ; but perhaps the contrary may be inferred, since in 1738 a vote to lay the "upper great floor of the meeting-house " is coupled with a vote to " plaster the school-house over- head ;" but there are indications that the upper room of the meeting- house was used for school purposes instead. Sundry votes indicate that in 1746-1748 the society built two school-houses, -one in the north section, the other in the south, the town furnishing land for the sites. While no vote designates these sites, all the indications are that one was in Broad Street and the other where the North Brick school- house is to-day. About 1768 John Welles, Jacob Dix, Ozias Griswold, Zephaniah Hatch, Samuel Wolcott, Josiah Robbins, and others, at their own expense built a school-house, probably of wood, on Windmill (West) Hill. In 1770, and perhaps earlier, a school was kept " on the hill, in Collyer road," running west from South Hill to Griswoldville. It was probably in some dwelling-house on South Hill.
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