USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > Waterbury > The town and city of Waterbury, Connecticut, from the aboriginal period to the year eighteen hundred and ninety-five, Volume I > Part 67
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90 | Part 91 | Part 92 | Part 93 | Part 94 | Part 95 | Part 96 | Part 97 | Part 98 | Part 99 | Part 100 | Part 101 | Part 102 | Part 103 | Part 104 | Part 105
* Among those who became converts to the new views were the different members of the Burnham family in Henderson. One of these, Edwin Burnham, married Mr. Weeks's youngest daughter Elizabeth, who became the mother of Daniel H. Burnham, the man to whose skill and energy the success of the World's Fair at Chicago in 1893 was so largely due. Mrs. Burnham died at the age of eighty-three, at her son's home in Evanston, Ill., January 15, 1893.
623
THE FIRST CHURCH TO 1825.
He lived to a good old age, happy in the consciousness that he had found the way of truth and righteousness, and died amidst his friends and children on July 24, 1843. It is said of him in an obitu- ary notice in the New Jerusalem Magazine for 1843 that "Mr. Weeks was a man of warm and kind feelings, of clear understanding and acute reasoning powers. He had an elevated sense of the dignity and importance of the ministerial office, and was well aware not only of the necessity of leading a life of charity, but also of main- taining sound doctrines in order to the advancement of the church."
If we may judge from the circumstances connected with Mr. Weeks's dismission from Waterbury, the lowest ebb of the worldly prosperity of the First church was not reached, as has been sugges- ted, in 1795, but a dozen years later. The decadence which set in as a consequence of the Revolutionary war continued growing more and more serious until this time. The third meeting-house seems to have been built without a serious struggle; but this was perhaps the result in part of a spirit of rivalry-the Episcopal society being engaged at the same time in a similar task. Besides the building of the meeting-house there was no other token of prosperity for several years to come. In 1774 the population of the entire town was 3526; in 1790 it was 6107-an increase of seventy-three per cent-and in 1800 it had increased to over 7000 persons-that is, within the original limits. But the chief increase had not been within the bounds of the First society, and the church, certainly, showed few signs of a vigorous life. In 1795, as we have seen, the membership numbered only ninety-three, and for twenty years the accessions, except in January, 1800, and July, 1801, were very few. Many minor tribulations had followed the building of the third meeting-house. The steeple would not stand upright and caused much trouble; the division of ministerial and trust funds with other societies-notably with Middlebury-had caused much annoyance and cost. When Mr. Weeks was dismissed the society laid a tax to raise $400 that was due on his salary. A rapid change, however, soon followed, which the present pastor of the church, in his bicentenary discourse, described as follows:
Between 1800 and 1820 a double transformation took place which makes this epoch a marked one in the history of the town and the church. In the town at large that new era of prosperity was entered upon which still shines upon us and in the light and warmth of which we have grown to be a flourishing city. At the beginning of the century Waterbury was an ordinary country village, with less than an average supply of attractions, and a poor prospect before it. In the esti- mation of the surrounding towns it was a kind of Nazareth, of which nothing good could be said. But it had in it what was better than topographical advantages-a group of ingenious, industrious, wide-awake men, and it had through the shaping
624
HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
of events an hour of golden opportunity. In this quiet, unpromising village, just at the opening of the century, the manufacture of gilt buttons and of clocks was begun, and from that time until now the " brass industry " has steadily grown, and has transformed not only the old village, but the entire Naugatuck valley. The record becomes doubly interesting when we find that in spiritual things also there was a revival of prosperity.
But it came slowly. The Rev. Mr. Weeks, in his farewell discourse, said to the people, "You will feel, I hope, the great importance of a speedy re-settlement of the gospel ministry. The longer you remain destitute, the greater the probability is that the state of the church and people will become more and more uncomfortable, broken and divided. If possible, let the first candidate you employ be the one on whom you fix your affections to be your minister." The hope thus expressed was hardly fulfilled, for the pastorate remained vacant from December, 1806, to November, 1808. Mr. Porter, the former pastor of the church, was on the committee for
Stering . April 13. 1807 (Derived J. M. Abraham "Prichard one
:
Dollar in part payment for supplying. the
Andmain
supplying the pulpit during 1807, and to him was committed the care of the ministerial money. As early as April, Andrew Eliot, son of the Rev. Andrew Eliot who had recently died in the Fair- field pastorate, and a graduate of Yale in the class of 1799, was unanimously invited to become pastor, and the invitation seems to have been pressed upon him; but in a frank and manly letter, which has been preserved,* he declined the call. He was settled in
* Mr. Eliot's letter is as follows :
GENTLEMEN :
NEW HAVEN, July 7th, 1807.
Your communication of June 25th, containing an invitation to settle with you in the work of the gospel ministry, I have received. You will please to accept my thanks for this renewed expression of regard. I did not expect or wish a renewal of your proposals, viewing it as a departure from long established custom. An
625
THE FIRST CHURCH TO 1825.
New Milford in February, 1808, and continued there until his death in 1829. In 1818 he was made a member of the corporation of Yale college. In September (1807), Thomas Ruggles, a still younger can- didate-a graduate of Yale in 1805, and licensed in 1806-preached for at least three Sundays,* and Reuben Taylor (Williams college, 1806) and other candidates, or at least "supplies," followed; but without definite result until August of the following year. At a meeting on August 25, 1808, the church unanimously "approved of the Christian character and ministerial qualifications of Mr. Luke Wood," and "invited him to take the pastoral care and charge of this church." The society "concurred," offering him a salary of $450 a year and the use of the " little pasture." A long communi- cation of acceptance from him was placed on record, a "fast " was appointed, according to custom, and Mr. Wood was ordained and
Sept. 28-18mg
Dollars in full for preaching three fallenthe.
-
installed, November 30, 1808. In preparation for his ordination a committee was directed to take charge of the meeting-house
acceptance under such circumstances would place a man in a very delicate situation, and would doubtless, with some, give rise to the inference that his motives were improper and sinister. It might give a people improper ideas of dependence, and might lead to a mode of proceeding in affairs of this kind different from the present, less honorable to the ministry and injurious to the cause of religion. These considerations, together with the advice of those ministers whom I have had time to consult upon the subject, induce me to send an answer in the negative. .
With the most sincere wishes for the prosperity of your society, and with sentiments of personal esteem and respect, I subscribe myself
Yours, etc., ANDREW ELIOT
Messis. John Kingsbury, Edward Porter, Elijah Hotchkiss, Edward Field.
* The "supplies " who preached in 1798 received £1, 4s a Sunday. At the time above referred to the fee seems to have been $6. The condition of the treasury is brought to view in a sad way by Mr. Eliot's receipt for one dollar.
40
626
HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
on that day, and to reserve sufficient seats for the council and clergy."*
Luke Wood was born in Somers in 1777. He was a grandson of Thomas Wood, one of the first deacons of the church in Somers, and in his early years " sat under the ministrations" of Dr. Charles Backus. He graduated at Dartmouth college in 1802, and pursued his professional studies under the eminent Dr. Emmons. He received the honorary degree of M. A. from Yale in 1808, and Waterbury was his first parish. His daughter, Mrs. William Rus- sell, the mother of Dr. Francis T. Russell, in a letter addressed to the present writer, some years since, spoke of the cordiality and hospitality with which he and his family were received in the parish. But she added:
After successive years of a faithful pastorate, he was stricken with a contagious fever to which he had been exposed during a season of unusual sickness. He did not recover for some months, and was left with an ulcer in his side which eventu- ally made it necessary for him to obtain a minister in his place. Mr. Nettleton, the distinguished revival preacher-then on a circuit near Waterbury-was ready to come at my father's request. During his stay with our family and the people, my father was under the care of a surgeon in Canton (Conn.), where he was obliged to remain some months on account of a surgical operation and for his recovery after.
Dr. Nettleton's visit, here referred to, resulted in an extensive "' old-fashioned revival"-the most wide-spread and important that has occured in the history of the Waterbury churches. At the time of Mr. Wood's coming, there had not been an addition to the church, except by letters of dismission from other churches, in six years. During the seven years preceding Nettleton's engagement twenty persons had been received on profession of their faith. The " mor- tal sickness" which prevailed in the spring and summer of 1815 failed to make any marked impression on the religious condition of the community. "Whatever serious effects," said a writer in the Religious Intelligencer at the time, "might be expected to arise from the heavy judgments with which we had been visited, they appeared to be lost upon us. Vice, immorality and irreligion appeared to gain additional strength, and the cloud that overshadowed us in a moral point of view appeared fraught with tenfold darkness." In the following February, however, tokens of religious interest began to appear, and these continued to increase for some months. A man who had been "an open opposer " of religion became converted, and in June special meetings for prayer began to be held. Soon
* The "clergy"! Surely now the time was drawing near when the meeting-house might be called ' church " without danger of a revolution.
627
THE FIRST CHURCH TO 1825.
afterward the Rev. Lyman Beecher of Litchfield and the Rev. Mr. Nettleton spent a Sunday with the church, and arrangements were made with Mr. Nettleton to begin "a series of meetings." He con- tinued his labors in Waterbury for several months, and with re- markable results. "The work became very extensive and powerful; it embraced all ages from youth to gray hairs. In many instances whole families came under deep conviction." Tangible results fol- lowed immediately. The records show that on the first Sunday in August seventeen were received to the church, in October nine, in February (1817) seventy-one, in April fourteen, and in June seven, making a total of 118, of whom 110 were regarded at the time as "fruits of the revival." *
These, however, were not the only results of the movement which had taken place in the church and the community. There were results of a less definite kind, some of which were good, others evil; but besides these there were certain "institutions" which came into being about this time, the origin of which is naturally associated with the revival, and the value of which has been very great in the later life of the parish. These are the Sunday school, the church prayer-meeting, the Ladies' Benevolent society and an auxiliary missionary society. The missionary society has long been extinct, but for some years it had a flourishing life in the First church. At a meeting of the church, September 24, 1820, it was agreed to "unite with the other churches of the consociation in a constitution for a society auxiliary to the American Board of Com- missioners for Foreign Missions." The society had two branches in Waterbury, one for men and the other for women, and from a pub- lished "report" which has survived, it appears that such men as Bennet Bronson, Elijah Hotchkiss, James Brown, Aaron Benedict and S. B. Minor, and such women as Mrs. Israel Coe, Mrs. Ruth Humiston and Mrs. Edward Scovill, were the officers, and that there was besides a large corps of collectors.t The Ladies' Benevolent society was in its origin more definitely connected with the revival. It was formed almost in the midst of the movement, in 1816 or 1817. It consisted of young women whose hearts were stirred to do some- thing in the line of Christian philanthropy. The object at first
* See Dr. Bennet Tyler's "Memoir of Nettleton," pp. 90-94. In May, 1817, as the records show, sixty- two children were baptized in the First church on one Sunday.
+ A list of subscribers in the women's branch, extending from 1825 to 1834, has been preserved, from which it appears that the customary annual contribution was twenty-five cents. In 1827 the collections reported from Waterbury were, from the men's "association" $25.60, and from the women's $23.25, and it is added that "of this sum four dollars were from Mrs. Humiston, a donation to the Jews' society, and voted by said society for the benefit of Foreign missions," and_that " four dollars were the avails of a gold ring and a string of beads."
628
HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
was the making of clothing for young men who were studying for the ministry, and the society continued to work for this for twenty- five or thirty years. The first president was the pastor's daughter, Ursula Wood (afterward Mrs. William Russell, whose letter was quoted above); the first vice-president Polly Clark (Mrs. Merlin Mead); the secretary Anna M. Leavenworth (Mrs. Green Kendrick), and the treasurer Maria Clark (Mrs. John T. Baldwin). During the pastorate of the Rev. Henry N. Day a society auxiliary to this was organized on Town Plot, which was at one time more flourishing than the parent organization.
The origin of the church prayer-meeting cannot be precisely fixed, but it certainly belongs to this period, although it had an intermittent life for some years afterward. As regards the Sunday school, however, it was not only a product of the renewed spiritual life of the people; its beginning is definitely indicated. It appears from statements quoted in Volume II (p. 582), that it did not have an uninterrupted existence, but there is no question that it came into being in 1819. In July of the previous year the church "voted to appoint a committee for the purpose of setting up a Sabbath school," and the committee reported on June 26 (1819), " that there should be a president, a vice-president and three directors." The report was adopted, and Elijah Hotchkiss was made president and Edward Field vice-president. Further details are given as follows, in a memorandum prepared in 1857 by Deacon E. L. Bronson:
The Sunday school was established in the gallery of the old church by Anna M. Leavenworth, Polly Clark and Ruth W. Holmes, who were subsequently assisted by Candace Allen, Susan Cooke, Hulda Hitchcock and several others. It consisted at first of fifteen or sixteen female scholars. There was much opposition on the part of many of the members of the church, as the few Sunday schools they had then heard of were designed principally for the benefit of those who were too poor to avail themselves of any other opportunity of gaining instruction. The school was continued, however, for several years, but without any formal organization, and only during the summer months. The course of study and the recitations were confined chiefly to the Bible and the " Shorter Catechism."
About 1822, the pastor, the Rev. Daniel Crane, gave the following notice: "Mr. Israel Holmes will meet the children in the West Centre school-house, and instruct them to the best of his ability."* The school still held its sessions during the sum- mer months only. About 1825 it was re-established in the meeting-house, and Dea- con Benedict was chosen superintendent. He was succeeded by John Clark, Deacon P. W. Carter, for two years, and Horace Hotchkiss, after which it was continued as a permanent institution. But its history, preserved as it is only in the memories of its members, is not very definite or reliable.
* This was probably in 1823, as on May 2 of that year the church "voted that the subject of the instruc- tion of the youth is entitled to the attention of the church and that they will engage in it." The communion collection taken in September following was by vote " appropriated to the use of the Sabbath school."
629
THE FIRST CHURCH TO 1825.
Mr. Bronson's list of Sunday school superintendents, with later additions, is as follows :
Elijah Hotchkiss, Israel Holmes, Aaron Benedict, John Clark, P. W. Carter, Horace Hotchkiss, Seth Fuller, Edward Clarke, Frederick Treadway, Nelson Hall, Charles Fabrique, Josiah A. Blake, Isaac R. Bronson, John S. Mitchell, Robert Crane, Edward L. Bronson, Ammi Giddings, Jonathan R. Crampton, William I. Fletcher, George W. Beach, Solon M. Terry, J. Henry Morrow, Silas B. Terry, Lester M. Camp, Wilson H. Pierce, Alexander C. Mintie, James V. Reed, Edward W. Goodenough.
Mr. Wood's pastorate was brought to a close about the time that the revival culminated. Up to June, 1817, the accessions to the church, as already stated, were 118; in August there were no addi- tions, in October there was one, in the whole year 1818 only two, and in 1819 only one. And in the meantime a distaste had been developed for such preaching as Mr. Wood could furnish. "After a time," as Mrs. Russell states the matter, in the letter already quoted, " when my father resumed his office, there was less interest felt in his preaching than in Mr. Nettleton's (as was natural), and some dissatisfaction was expressed, which of course greatly dis- turbed my father's mind, and he was eventually dismissed." The vote of the church on November 1, 1817, was painfully frank: "Voted that this church does not approve of the preaching of the Rev. Luke Wood, and that under existing circumstances the mem- bers are of opinion that his usefulness as a gospel minister with them is at an end." To this action Mr. Wood replied promptly, pro- posing under certain reasonable conditions to call a council for his dismission. The council was called, and he was dismissed from the pastorate November 19, 1827, having labored here, amidst much sickness and many trials, for very nearly nine years. As soon as his health was somewhat restored he engaged in missionary labors in western New York and Pennsylvania. After this he preached in Cheshire, Westford, Clinton and West Hartland, and in 1842 retired to Somers, his native town, where he spent the remainder of his days. He died on August 22, 1851 .*
After Mr. Wood's dismission the church remained without a pastor for three years and a half, the pulpit being supplied by a variety of ministers. With the qualifications of the Rev. Daniel A. Clark, who had recently come here to open a school (see Vol. II, p. 537), the people were so well satisfied that they extended to him a unanimous call, early in 1820, but it was not accepted, and more
* The Congregational Journal of February 4, 1852 (published at Concord, N. H.), contains an obituary notice filling three columns, devoted chiefly to an account of Mr. Wood's personal characteristics.
630
HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
than a year elapsed ere another candidate was found upon whom they could unite. He appeared in the person of the Rev. Daniel Crane, and "at a church meeting legally warned, and opened by prayer," on May 28, 1821, he was invited to take the pastoral charge. The society "concurred," voting a salary of $450 a year, with the use of the so-called parsonage lot, and he was installed on July 3.
He was the son of Joseph and Hannah Crane, and was born in Cranetown (now Montclair), N. J., April 13, 1778. He graduated from Princeton college in 1797, and afterward studied theology under the Rev. Amzi Armstrong of Mendham, N. J. He married Hannah, daughter of Dr. Matthias Pierson of Orange, N. J., by whom he had two children, Eleazar and Abby. At the time of his coming to Waterbury, his son was about twenty years of age and his daughter a year or two younger.
With one exception, Mr. Crane's pastorate was the shortest in the history of the parish, and if we may judge from the records it was almost destitute of incidents worthy of mention. Its pecuni- ary condition-partly, perhaps, as a result of being so long without pastoral care-was very unfavorable. The attempt had been made to sell the pews, at first for $7000 and then for $5000, and, that plan proving a failure, to lease them for two years, then for one year, then to lease a part of them; and finally the old seating plan was resorted to, without satisfaction, and another plan was tried,-"age only to be considered and no one degraded"; then again, to seat according to "list and age," every year to count for $20. But neither plan nor device satisfied the people. In 1820 pews might be leased for two years. In 1821, in order to raise a salary for the support of preaching, pews might be leased for one year. In 1822 they went back to seating the meeting-house, but this time by "list" exclusively. In 1824, they were again leased and might be taken by persons not belonging to the society. The spiritual life of the parish was also at a low ebb. It is true that in November, 1820, eight persons united with the church on profession of faith, but there was nothing else to indicate that the reaction which had set in so soon after the Nettleton revival did not still continue. Early in Mr. Crane's pastorate seven were "added to the church," but these, with five received at later dates, were all who were admitted on profession during his three years' ministry.
The one notable thing in the history of the period is the serious rupture and prolonged conflict between the pastor's family and one of his leading parishioners, John Clark. Mr. Clark was a man of intelligence and cultivation (a graduate of Yale college in the class of 1806), and the conflict which took place must have seriously
631
THE FIRST CHURCH TO 1825.
affected the peace and well-being of the church, if not of the entire community. The occasion of the trouble was a negro servant whom Mr. Crane had brought with him from New Jersey, and whom Mr. Clark hired to do work in his home. It seemed difficult for Mr. Crane to relinquish his claim upon the girl, and the result was a collision of claims and opinions and an acrimonious quarrel. The matter came before the church on January 2, 1824, when a commit- tee was appointed to confer with Mr. Clark respecting the difficulty between him and the pastor. Two weeks later a definite complaint was made against Mr. Clark, and on February 24 the matter was submitted to the consociation. The difficulty was not healed, and three months afterward the church voted " to withdraw our fellow- ship and watch from our brother John Clark."
The healing of this breach, so far as Mr. Clark and the church were concerned, is related in Volume II, page 582. But in the mean- time Mr. Crane's hold upon the parish had been loosened. Matters took such shape that on January 4, 1825, the society by vote offered Mr. Crane the sum of $100 on condition of his being dismissed before May I. The church, in April, voted to call the consociation to dissolve the pastoral connection between Mr. Crane and the people. The consociation met on April 25, and after due delibera- tion reached the following result:
Voted unanimously that in consequence of the difficulties which have arisen in the society the dismission of Mr. Crane is expedient, and that he is hereby dis- missed from his connection with the church and society in Waterbury. We are happy to find on inquiry that nothing has occurred which is in the smallest degree injurious to the moral or ministerial character of Mr. Crane, and we do cheerfully and cordially recommend him to the churches as an able minister of the gospel. We deeply lament those unhappy divisions which have deprived the church in this place of their pastor, and pray the great Head of the Church to unite their hearts in love, and to furnish them with another pastor who may build them up in the faith and lead them in the way of salvation.
The answer to this prayer was delayed for nearly six years. Mr. Crane removed from Waterbury to a pastorate in Fishkill, N. Y., and from there after some years to Chester, N. Y. On leaving Chester he bought a farm near Cornwall-on-Hudson, and for the remainder of his life devoted his attention largely to the cultiva- tion of his land. He discontinued preaching, except as an occa- sional supply for the Rev. Jonathan Stillman of Cornwall, whose church he attended in that place. When he went to Cornwall his wife was still living, although she had been long an invalid. His son died many years ago, leaving a family of children, only one of whom (a daughter, Mary) survives. His daughter married a prom- inent citizen of Cornwall and died childless. Mr. Crane took a deep
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.