USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > Mount Carmel > The old Mount Carmel parish, origins & outgrowths > Part 7
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About a mile east of the river under the mountain, Itha- mar Todd came into possession of several pieces of land in the spring of 1734, and built there soon after. One of these tracts was from John and Elizabeth Merriman of Walling- ford "to our son Ithamar Todd." Mrs. Merriman was Todd's mother. She was a daughter of Eleazer and Sarah (Bulkeley) Brown and married Michael Todd. They had nine children, of whom Ithamar was the youngest. After her husband's death, she married Lieutenant Samuel Street, whom she also survived. She married, third, John Merri- man. We see, then, that Ithamar Todd's family connections were numerous, in Wallingford as well as in New Haven.
In November, 1737, Lazarus Ives bought two acres of land "above the Steps" and in December his father, Ebene- zer Ives, gave him twenty-eight acres more in the same neighborhood adjacent to lands of Joseph Turner, John Hitchcock, and Mrs. Ruth Ives, the widow of Samuel Ives, his uncle. This is especially interesting, in view of the promi- nence of the Ives family in the later history of Mount Car- mel. Mrs. Lazarus Ives was Mabel Punderson, a daughter of Thomas and Lydia (Bradley) Punderson, and a cousin of the Bradley brothers whose homesteads were in the imme- diate neighborhood.
Three years later, in November, 1740, Lazarus Ives's cousin, Jonathan Ives, a son of Deacon Samuel Ives of North Haven, bought of his brother Samuel seventeen acres of land "lying about a mile below the Steps," bounded on the east by Mill River and on the west by the highway, property in a locality with which the Ives family has been identified ever since. Mrs. Jonathan Ives was Thankful Cooper, a daughter of Joseph and Abigail Cooper of North Haven.
About the same time that Jonathan Ives built his house, the two brothers, Samuel and Jonathan Dickerman, came upon the ground, building their house a little south of Bel- lamy's tavern, on the east side of the highway where the
AT
L
The Store at the Steps The factory at the left formerly stood on the site of Munson's mills See note on page 72
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Mills, Roads, Fords, and Bridges.
brook ran across. Apparently, the two brothers lived to- gether here for a while. Then Samuel bought various tracts of land above the Steps, some at Ridge Hill, some adjacent to Amos Bradley's place, and some adjoining Nathaniel Tuttle's, and in due time he moved into that neighborhood, leaving the other homestead to Jonathan.
The rapid growth of travel over the new roads is shown by two incidents that appear in the records. In March, 1760, the proprietors took a bond of Joel Munson to make a good cart bridge over the brook in the highway to Cheshire, re- ferring to the stream that comes down from the western hills and joins the river just above the Steps; and in the fol- lowing December measures were taken to build a bridge over the river for the road south of the mountain. Before the bridges were built, the streams were crossed by fording, which was easy enough in ordinary times; but when heavy rains or melting snows made a freshet, the passing became dangerous, if not impossible. If a road was little used, people could postpone a trip till the freshet had passed; but with the increases of travel bridges were demanded as absolutely necessary. This, however, did not mean a discontinuance of the ford. The bridge was made over one side of the ford and the rest left as it had been. As the streams had a hard pebbly bottom, it was about as easy to go through them as over a bridge, and it was the habit for oxen and horses to pause and drink as they went across the ford, making it a place of rest and refreshment.
With the passing of years, the new houses became filled with children and the community grew in every way. More ground was cleared of trees and put under cultivation. More stock was raised, cattle, sheep, hogs, and poultry; orchards were set out and apples became a considerable crop, with the natural accompaniment of a cider mill; flax was raised to make up into linen fabrics, as the sheep furnished wool for warmer clothing. Industries multiplied in every homestead. Even the mills could not hold their monopolies. President Stiles, about 1780, writes in his diary of a visit to his brother- in-law, Baszel Munson, and of a new Gig Mill that had just
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The Old Mount Carmel Parish.
been started whose performances were such that Stiles wanted to have it more widely known .* This was a different mill from the old one at the Steps; and in another publica- tion Stiles has a diagram to show the location of mills in Mount Carmel, including also Todds' mill and those at Hotchkissville, naming fourteen in all, six grist mills and eight saw mills. This and another diagram of President Stiles's are reproduced for this volume.t
* Stiles, Diary, Vol. II, pp. 470-471.
Itinerary and Correspondence of Ezra Stiles, p. 150.
NOTE: The store at the Steps, as shown in the picture, is enlarged from what it was as I knew it in 1850, by inclosing the porch. Hobart Kimberly was then the storekeeper, and the business seems to have come down to him in continuous succession from the trade started with the building of Munson's mills in 1734. Kimberly's ways were about as primitive as the store. It used to be said that he had not been in New Haven for twenty years. Some farmer from up the road, going to town with his load of produce, would stop at the store and take orders for any stock that might be needed, and on the way back would stop again and leave what had been bought. Kimberly's manner of keeping his accounts was equally simple. If a buyer did not want to pay the cash down, he wrote the cus- tomer's name with the amount purchased on a bit of wrapping paper and dropped it into a drawer under the counter. When it came to settling up, the case was not so simple and the buyer sometimes had trouble in finding out exactly how much he did owe. If a boy came asking for the bill, Kim- berly was likely to say, "What is the hurry about it?" and let him go home without any bill.
IX Parish and Church.
A® S early as 1727, it came to be understood that eventu- ally there would be a new community center "near the Blue Hills," for in the Sixth Division the pro- prietors set apart fifty acres of land for the support of a minister there when a parish should be formed.
The manner in which settlers came out into this part of the town was not altogether favorable for their uniting in a single separate parish. One neighborhood was about Gil- bert's Farm, and another, quite distinct, lay three or four miles to the north, while the country between was mostly un- occupied. The central point for all would have been where no one was living at that time. So the people about Gilbert's Farm found it easier to go over to North Haven for church privileges, and those at the north went up to Cheshire. This usage did not help to bring the two neighborhoods into ac- cord, but tended to keep them separate by affiliation with these other societies.
Then the mills were built at the Steps, Bellamy's tavern followed, and one house after another arose in the vicinity to make a new neighborhood midway between the two so widely distinct. This became at once a center of common in- terests. Business brought the people into familiar relations almost without their thinking of it and cooperation for mu- tual benefit had little need to be urged. The turn of events decided where the meeting-house ought to stand and the time had come for the long-expected parish.
In May, 1757, a memorial with many signatures, having the names of Daniel Bradley, Joel Munson, and Israel Sperry at the head of the list, was presented to the General Assembly, setting forth the facts in the case, and asking for the establishment of a distinct ecclesiastical society. The pe- tition was duly considered and in the following October the Assembly instituted the new parish "to be called and known
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The Old Mount Carmel Parish.
by the name of Mount Carmel." The southern boundary was a line running from the point where Shepherd's Brook falls into Mill River a little north of west to the top of West Rock. The other boundaries coincide with those of the north- ern part of the present town of Hamden. Thus it covered a territory extending from Cheshire to nearly a mile below the present village of Centerville.
Why the name "Mount Carmel" was chosen no one can tell. Probably because it was a good Bible name and no other seemed better. Heretofore, the mountain range had been commonly known as the "Blue Hills," and this was the term in general use till long after the parish of Mount Carmel lost its identity in the town of Hamden. But of late years the name which the General Assembly gave to an ecclesiastical society has become fastened on the mountain, so that the earlier name is scarcely used at all. So, in this instance, the natural order is reversed; the parish did not get its designa- tion from the mountain, but the mountain from the parish.
Some three months after the action of the General Assem- bly, on January 21, 1758, the first meeting of the Mount Carmel Ecclesiastical Society was held. The officers chosen were: Clerk, Samuel Atwater; Moderator, Daniel Bradley; Society's Committee, Andrew Goodyear, Samuel Dicker- man, and Ithamar Todd; Committee to consult lawyers, Ithamar Todd, Jonathan Alling, and Samuel Bellamy; Col- lector, Jonathan Ives. The meeting adjourned to meet the second Tuesday of March at the dwelling house of Samuel Bellamy.
At this adjourned meeting, March 14, it was voted to give warning of Society meetings by beating the drum at the north end from Daniel Bradley's house to Elisha Bradley's, and at the south end from Enos Pardee's house to Andrew Goodyear's, the distance in each case being about a quarter of a mile; and to proclaim the time and place at least five days before the meetings. Agents were appointed to represent the Society at the General Assembly.
On November 9, a School Committee was appointed, and
303
To the Honourable General Afsembly to be holden at Hartford in the Second Think dy of may enne vist the Memorial of the Subkenburs the Inhabitants of the file fairly In Cites Maven humbly theweth that we are fluate In the Crowther fre fourty & the ticaret of us complace of Isublick working they fourty hl about five miles & youn that Difenceare filled forme 745x9 0 \11x122013 14 miles Dittener than the ISablack Worthing & forme ofus have numerous families Which.
makes our Attendance on the clubtul whip In Aute Society very Difficult is on the more Dificul Death of
your Ancourt Max Dificulte Dire (inconfiance into your wife information & Apoint of Commity at the file of your Memorialife to view the Creamytances of your honour memorialift & to Affix Mets & Boures for us to be A Difinet Certificatical pointy by our pelos fu Safe Commity Shall Judge it newful & theft & your massoralife ar In July Bound Shall & CDated at new Haven this 2Nd April Ano Dommin 1757.
Israel Sowing
William Bradly
Atomen LaLittle John ques
Samuel atwater
6 Ks ha Bradley Hunting Thompson Wait - huttertem
John Hitchcock Jamie Dickermain formul Bellamy
John Pirker inner Monk Delete
gottawil Tuttle
Daniel Bradley ?
Lazarus gues i .
Daniel Spary
Jonathan Dickerman
Daniel Chores
Jonathan Elling
Odin Jurner
Jacob Ettwater
Almos Pick
Sseroh Johnson
Benjamin Hoth Kiss Fun ourcel el
Petition for a New Parish
From original in Connecticut State Library at Hartford by courtesy of George S. Godard, Librarian
4
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Parish and Church.
from this time on such a committee was regularly chosen at stated times.
On December 27, a committee was chosen to take care and get some money, and this was the beginning of the Finance Committee.
January 10, 1759, a committee was chosen to see to the building of a meeting-house: Jason Bradley, Samuel Dicker- man, Andrew Goodyear, Elisha Bradley, Noah Wolcott, Jonathan Alling, Stephen Cooper, Jesse Blakeslee, and Solo- mon Doolittle.
In the following year, the Society lost two of its leading members by death, Samuel Dickerman and Samuel Bellamy. There seems to have been no delay, however, in their under- taking, and on July 3, 1760, a meeting was held at which the meeting-house was reported to be "set up."
March 30, 1761, it was decided to have "occasional preaching as soon as the committee shall think the meeting- house fit" and the committee were directed to "take care and get a candidate." The candidate was soon found in Stephen Hawley, a Yale graduate of 1759, who had been employed three years as college butler, taking his course in theology at the same time, and had been licensed to preach by the New Haven Association of Ministers in May, 1761. Hawley proved acceptable and continued to conduct the services for several months, till, in December, it was voted to settle him as their minister if the terms could be agreed upon. It was also voted to sell the minister's lot belonging to the Society if it should be wanted, and a committee was appointed to confer with Mr. Hawley about the terms of settlement. Ap- parently this committee and the young minister had no diffi- culty in coming to an agreement .*
But, just at this point, a difficulty arose from another quarter; it was over the question as to how the minister should be settled, which was a burning question at that time. In the allotment of land for the parishes in 1727, it was specified that it should be "for a Congregational or Presby- terian ministry," leaving open the question as to which of the
* Dexter, Yale Biographies, Second Series, pp. 590-591.
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The Old Mount Carmel Parish.
two it should be. According to the popular understanding, the question was whether the minister should be ordained by a Council of their own choosing, or by action of the Conso- ciation. To our thought, this may seem a trifling reason for division. But to them, at that particular time, it was far from a trifling reason .*
Their differences of opinion were nothing more than an echo of earnest convictions that were widely prevalent in the churches of Connecticut. For fifty years, the Saybrook Plat- form had been made the law of procedure, vesting church government in the Association and Consociation and giving to ministers the control of affairs, till rampant abuses pro- voked revolt. These Mount Carmel people had seen the abuses and not a few were in sympathy with the revolt. That year, 1759, in which they were building their meeting- house, was a memorable year in some of the churches close by. In that year, the White Haven Church, which was not in the Consociation, was given an overwhelming majority in town meeting against the First Church, and the salary which theretofore had been paid always to Mr. Noyes was voted to the Reverend Samuel Bird. To understand the signifi- cance of this, one should remember that, a few years before, the Reverend Samuel Finley, who was afterward President of Princeton College, was arrested for preaching to the White Haven people and carried out of the colony as a va- grant. Some of the Mount Carmel people were members of the First Church, and a larger number belonged to the White Haven Church. Is it strange they did not think alike?
There were doings at North Haven too, just at this time, that could not have worked to smooth out such differences. The aged pastor, the Reverend Isaac Stiles, after a long and honored ministry, was spending the later years of his life in a lawsuit against his people.
Then, at Wallingford, 1759 was the year of the famous Dana controversy. The church called James Dana, a Har-
* Parker, "Congregational Separates," N. H. Col. Hist. Soc., Papers, Vol. VIII, pp. 158-159.
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Parish and Church.
vard man, to be their pastor and invited a Council to ordain him; whereupon a minority opposed to him called the Con- sociation, which came and forbade the ordination. The Coun- cil denied their right to interfere and went on with the serv- ice. The Consociation asked the Hartford Consociation to meet with them in joint convention, and the two declared the relation between Mr. Dana and the church dissolved. A few months later, sentence of non-communion was published against Dana and his church, and the ministers and delegates of the ordaining Council were denounced as "disorderly per- sons and not fit to sit in any of our ecclesiastical councils."
With things like these going on in the churches right about them, it can hardly be wondered at that the farmer folks of the new parish, as they met in their unfinished meeting-house to talk about getting a minister, were some- what uncertain as to what it was best to do. What they actu- ally did is found in their records of February 16, 1762. On account of "a difficulty subsisting in the society relative to Mr. Hawley's settlement, with regard to an ordaining coun- cil," it was voted "to refer it to three Rev'd gentlemen that are not within the district of New Haven county, namely, Mr. Eliot of Killingworth, Mr. Judson of Newtown and Mr. Pitkin of Farmington." A praiseworthy measure to ob- tain advice from trusted men who were far removed from the passionate wrangling in their neighborhood! The advice that came back was to apply to the New Haven Association for counsel. This they did, and the way seemed now to be opening for the ordination.
Meanwhile, however, their candidate was lost. Another new society had been formed in what is now Bethany and had asked the Association to recommend a candidate, which resulted in Hawley's receiving a call and accepting it, enter- ing thus on a ministry that continued throughout his life of thirty-five years. A rather costly rebuke of the Mount Car- mel people for presuming to think of any other mode of settling a minister than according to the Saybrook Platform!
Nothing remained but to start in again hearing candidates.
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The Old Mount Carmel Parish.
During the following autumn, Jesse Ives preached for them a number of Sundays with considerable acceptance. He was a native of Wallingford; a graduate of Yale in 1758; had studied theology with the Reverend John Trumbull of Westbury; and been licensed to preach by the New Haven Association in May, 1760. He had then ministered to the church in Norfolk and received a call to the pastorate, but failed of ordination on account of certain charges of "equivocation and want of seriousness." After he had been at Mount Carmel awhile, the advice of the Association was asked and they counselled the parish "not to proceed until the rumors originating in Litchfield county were cleared up." Nevertheless, on May 5, 1763, the parish voted for him by a majority of fifty-eight against sixteen; but when it was proposed to apply to the moderator of the Association for an ordaining Council, the motion was voted down, and at a subsequent meeting a motion was made and carried that the Society "designed to settle according to Congregational principles." Against this measure, nineteen members regis- tered their protest. Their names indicate the line-up in favor of the Consociation:
Daniel Sperry Jona. Dickerman Joel Bradley
Jonathan Alling
Benj. Hotchkiss Elisha Mallory
Joseph Johnson Jabez Bradley Amos Bradley
Joseph Ives Andrew Goodyear Benj. Pardee
Isaac Dickerman
Wait Chatterton Elisha Bradley
Daniel Bradley
Solomon Doolittle
John Munson
Ebenezer Beach
A committee to confer with Mr. Ives was as follows: Jona- than Ives, Samuel Atwater, Joel Munson, Simeon Bristol, Stephen Goodyear, and John Hitchcock.
Not long after this action, the Association summoned Ives before it for investigation and suspended his license. In re- sponse, the Mount Carmel people voted to "desire Mr. Ives still to preach in their Society." Mr. Ives, however, did not assent to their proposal. The Association was severe with him for a year or two, but eventually restored his license, after
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Parish and Church.
which he was ordained to a pastorate in Pontapaug, now Sprague, in the neighborhood of Norwich .*
It is interesting to note in connection with these two un- successful efforts to settle a minister that neither Hawley nor Ives was wholly unrewarded. They seem to have been en- tertained at the Bellamy house and found its atmosphere so congenial that it became to them a permanent home. Hawley found a wife in the oldest daughter, Mary Bellamy, and Ives followed his example by marrying her sister, Sarah Bel- lamy. Thus, in after years, they came, sometimes with their children, to visit the scene of those early experiences in which happiness and grief were so strangely mingled.
After the second failure to obtain a pastor, the Mount Carmel people turned their thoughts to a Mr. Fish of Ston- ington, undoubtedly Eliakim Fish, a Yale graduate of 1760, who was then serving as a surgeon's mate with the Army in Havana. Fish was in college at the same time with Hawley and Ives. He must have known something about their vicis- situdes and this may have turned him away from the minis- try. He gave no encouragement to the approaches from Mount Carmel, but entered with great earnestness on the calling of a physician, in which he rose to eminence as a prac- titioner in Hartford.t
It was probably the expectation among the people of Mount Carmel that, when a minister was engaged, the church would be formally instituted at the same time with the ordination. But with the long delay of more than two years, some began to think that the church had better be organized without further waiting. This was so particularly among those who wished the church to be under the Conso- ciation. Several churches in the vicinity were not under the Consociation, not only the White Haven Church, but the one at Branford and another at Guilford. It was plainly possible to follow their example; and the heavy vote, in relation to Mr. Ives, that the Society designed to settle according to Congregational principles, indicated a strong sentiment in
* Yale Biographies, Second Series, pp. 541-543.
t Ibid., p. 652.
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The Old Mount Carmel Parish.
favor of that course. To forestall such a step, the Consocia- tion party saw that they must do something. So, at a Society meeting, January 23, 1764, they brought the question to a vote whether the church should be at once organized. It was found that ten votes were in favor of it and fifty-two against it. This would seem to have been decisive, according to mod- ern ideas. Not so in those days. On the contrary, the big majority against the proposal seems to have been regarded as reason for putting the business through as soon as possible.
This seems to have been the view also of the Consociation, for only three days after the Society's meeting, January 26, 1764, the representatives of the Consociation, the Reverend Samuel Hall of Cheshire and the Reverend Benjamin Trumbull of North Haven, appeared at the meeting-house in Mount Carmel, on the invitation of several people there, and proceeded to constitute them a church "in strict union and communion with the consociated ministers and churches of the county." These two men, Mr. Hall and Mr. Trum- bull, made report in recognition of the church that it was formed of "members of full communion in neighboring churches, mostly of members of the churches of our respec- tive charge." The roll of members was as follows :*
Daniel Sperry c
Daniel Bradley, Jr. c
Andrew Goodyear x
Benjamin Hotchkiss c
Daniel Bradley c
Nathan Alling c
Wait Chatterton c
Elisha Bradley c
Jesse Blakeslee x
Jabez Bradley c
Amos Bradley c
Joseph Ives c
Amos Peck c Joel Bradley c
Solomon Doolittle c
Abraham Chatterton c
Jonathan Alling
John Munson
Caleb Andrews c
Isaac Dickerman
Benjamin Pardee x
David Sperry c
Jonathan Dickerman
Abigail Bradley (Daniel 2d)
c Previously identified with the church in Cheshire.
x Previously identified with the church in North Haven.
* The names of married women are followed by parentheses enclosing the Christian names of their husbands.
8 1
Parish and Church.
Mary Bradley (Amos)
Mary Grannis (John)
Mary Dickerman (Samuel)
Joanna Chatterton (Wait)
Ama Alling (Nathan)
Esther Bradley (Jabez)
Mary Bellamy (Samuel)
Mary Alling (Nathan 2d)
Martha Hitchcock (John 2d)
Mary Bradley (Elisha)
Mabel Bassett (William)
Hannah Pardee (Enos)
Hannah Goodyear (Jesse ) Abigail Bradley (Daniel 3d)
Elizabeth Peck (Amos)
Lydia Munson (John)
Mary Sperry (David)
Dinah Sperry
Jerusha Doolittle (Solomon)
Martha Brooks
Esther Sperry Anna Sperry
The number of men enrolled was twenty-three, with an equal number of women. A few months later, in June of the same year, the roll was extended by the addition of seven other men and eleven women:
Baszel Munson
Martha Hotchkiss (Benjamin)
Simeon Bristol
Abigail Bradley (Joel)
Phinehas Castle
Elizabeth Ives (Joseph)
Abner Todd
Hester Mallory (Elisha)
Samuel Atwater
Mary Todd (Abner)
Stephen Goodyear
Mabel Hitchcock
Asa Goodyear
Mary Bristol (Simeon)
Sarah Atwater (Samuel)
Lois Ives (John)
Esther Goodyear (Stephen)
Mehitabel Goodyear (Asa)
The total membership was then sixty-four, quite as large as one could look for after so strong a disapproval of organi- zation at that time as was expressed in the Society's meeting. A number of those who were members of other churches, however, did not transfer their membership; among whom were Joel Munson, Ithamar Todd, John Ives, Lazarus Ives, Jonathan Ives, John Hitchcock, Samuel Hitchcock, Enos Pardee, and Daniel Rexford. These were all men of influ- ence and would have added to the strength of the new church.
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