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 III > Part 13
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* It stood between South Main and Bank streets, fronting on South Main street,-where Music hall now is.
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HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
with another subscription, nearly equal to each of the preceding assessments, was sufficient, twelve years after the building was com- pleted, to place the church on a secure financial basis.
The Rev. Russell Jennings was the first pastor to preach in the new building, having accepted the call of the church in the autumn of 1835. During his able ministry of two years and a half, about forty were added to the church. After his resignation the pulpit was supplied for a year by the Rev. E. Savage and the Rev. W. Russell. In 1839 the Rev. Amos D. Watrous was called to the pas- torate. Elder Watrous had much power as an evangelist, and dur- ing his ministry of a year and a half eighty-one were added by baptism. He was succeeded by the Rev. W. S. Smith who remained only a few months.
The financial difficulties of the society had now so far culminated that it was not deemed wise under the circumstances to attempt to support a pastor ; and for four years, from 1840, the church was without a resident minister. Its pulpit was, however, acceptably supplied during the greater part of this period by two faithful ser- vants of God, the Rev. Orasmus Allen and the Rev. Irenus Atkins. These men were regularly ordained Baptist ministers, who were at this time engaged, however, in a manufacturing business in Bristol. They used to drive over from Bristol to occupy the vacant pulpit on alternate Sundays, or sometimes together, in which case one preached in the morning and the other in the afternoon. They contented themselves with from three to five dollars a Sun- day for their time, travel, services and expenses, and their able and faithful ministrations were very grateful to the struggling church.
In 1844 the Rev. Allen Darrow was called to the pastorate. He remained with the church three years, and about twenty were added during his ministry. In October, 1847, the Rev. Nehemiah M. Perkins accepted the call of the church, and labored faithfully and successfully for nearly seven years. About forty were added by baptism, the standing of the church in the community was raised, and its influence greatly extended. The church numbered about 200 members. It was united and free from debt, and enjoyed a revenue of several hundred dollars a year from the rent of stores in the basement of the church building. Its situation at the centre of a growing city brought additions "by letter " of those whose business led them to reside here, and gave promise of large acces- sions from the rapidly increasing population. The work of estab lishing a Baptist church in Waterbury upon a permanent founda- tion was now substantially accomplished.
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THE BAPTIST CHURCHES.
In October, 1855, the Rev. Joseph A. Bailey became pastor. After three years of his ministry the church numbered over 250 members, and was still united and prosperous. Then commenced a series of contentions cent- ring around a proposal to remodel and rebuild the house of worship. As a result of these contentions most of those who had hitherto taken a leading part in the affairs of the church either withdrew or were excluded, and the society proceeded at a cost of about $10,000 to enlarge and refit the church building. The building was extended toward Bank street, the front was changed from South Main street to Bank, the South Main street tower was taken down, and a spire erected. The members of the church made a most heroic effort to raise the money demanded FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH, BANK STREET, by this expenditure, but a debt of about 1860 TO 1877. $4000 was entailed upon its property, and was not entirely extin- guished for twenty years.
The pastorate of Mr. Bailey continued until 1873 and was ter- minated by his death. At that time the church numbered about 300 members. There had been a net gain of over 100, and he had baptized more than twice that number.
In April, 1874, nearly a year after Mr. Bailey's death, the Rev. George A. Starkweather accepted the call of the church. During his pastorate of three years, interrupted by several months of serious illness, fifty-one were added by baptism. The church estab- lished a mission at Simonsville, and built a chapel for its use at a cost of about $1600. D. L. Smith and A. J. Shipley were especially active in establishing this mission.
The Rev. George W. Folwell succeeded to the pastorate in August, 1877. He remained with the church seven years, in which time about ninety were baptized. During this pastorate an indebted- ness of about $3000, which had remained over from the rebuilding of the church, was finally removed. The debt on the new chapel at Simonsville was also paid, the church property between Bank and South Main streets was sold for $41,000, a lot was purchased on Grand street, and a new building erected at a total cost of $58,000. This amount was so far paid before the dedication that the church may be said to have entered its new edifice, June 1, 1883, substan- tially free from debt. It had, however, lost the considerable reve-
FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH, GRAND STREET ; DEDICATED, 1883.
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THE BAPTIST CHURCHES.
nue derived from the rent of the property on South Main street, and must henceforth pay its own way. It had now a membership of about 400, more than fifty of whom, however, were non-resi- dents.
In August, 1884, Mr. Folwell resigned, and in March, 1885, the Rev. John W. Richardson accepted the pastorate. He remained with the church about three years, during which time 160 were baptized. The membership increased to about 500, and the audi- torium of the new building was filled with large congregations.
Mr. Richardson resigned in December, 1887, and in April, 1888, the Rev. William P. Elsdon accepted the call of the church. He was to begin his work on May I, but owing to severe and protracted illness his pastorate did not really commence until three months later. On August 1, 1892, the accessions under his ministry had reached the exact number of 200, and the total membership of the church, after severe revisions of the roll and the dismission of a considerable number to organize a new church, amounted to 560. The "Manual" of the church for 1894 shows a membership of 628.
In the autumn of 1894 plans for the enlargement of the Sunday- school room and the increase of sittings in the body of the church were adopted, and work upon these improvements was begun in October. The wing in the rear was carried up to the height of three stories, a dining room was fitted up in the basement, and other valuable improvements were introduced. The church with these additions was re-dedicated in June, 1895 .*
DEACON TIMOTHY PORTER.
Timothy Porter, son of Daniel (son of Dr. Timothy, son of Dr. Daniel, son of Dr. Daniel, son of "Daniel the Bonesetter" of Farm- ington), was born January 30, 1792. For several years before reach- ing his majority he taught school in the winter season, and worked on his father's farm during the summer. In 1812 he married Clara, daughter of Eben Frisbie, and purchased a small property at the cross roads beyond Pliny Sheldon's saw mill (the site of which is now occupied by Rutter's tannery).
Soon after, with the help of a skilful mechanic, Benjamin Farrel (uncle of Almon Farrel), he built a small factory (on the river above where Barnard & Son's "shear shop" now stands) for the
* A brief historical sketch of the Baptist church was published in 1856. A discourse devoted to the his- tory of the church was preached by the Rev. G. W. Folwell, pastor, immediately after the dedication of the present house of worship, June 10, 1883. It was published in full in the Waterbury American of June 13. A " Manual of the First Baptist Church," published in 1894, contains a " historical sketch of the Waterbury Baptists," a list of officers and societies, the original charter referred to on p 675, a declaration of faith, rules of government, and a list of church members.
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HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
carding of wool, home-spinning and weaving being the custom of the people of those times. The business was fairly successful. His machines ran night and day during the busy season, and peo- ple from Wolcott, Prospect and other neighboring towns brought their wool to his mill, which had a capacity of about a hundred pounds daily. As wool carding began to decline, he associated him- self with Henry Steele and Enoch W. Frost for the manufacture of horn and bone buttons, carrying on the business in the carding- mill building.
After a few years he sold out his interest in this concern and purchased the tract of land between Mad river and the Cheshire road through which Carrington's brook flows. This tract was, at the time of his purchase, almost unbroken wood and swamp. In "developing" it he found a bed of clay on the swamp land, and in 1829 commenced the manufacture of bricks. In 1830, with bricks of his own manufacture, he built for himself the house on the Cheshire road, a little east of Carrington's brook, which is still in possession of his family. He prosecuted the brick-making indus- try successfully for about twenty years, and furnished nearly all the bricks used in Waterbury during that period .*
In further developing his land purchase, he found it included a valuable water privilege on Mad river, and about 1844 he conceived the idea of establishing a brass-mill upon it. There were at this time but three brass-mills in Waterbury, Scovill's, Benedict's and Brown & Elton's. Mr. Porter secured Israel Holmes, then of Tor- rington, to take charge of the new enterprise. Philo Brown and John P. Elton invested largely in it; and in 1845 what is now known as the East mill of the Waterbury Brass company was erected on property conveyed to the company by Mr. Porter. In 1850, having exhausted his bed of clay, he engaged in the ice business, which he continued until 1862, when he sold out to Hall, Upson & Co. In this business, as in the manufacture of bricks, he was the pioneer of his native town.t But with all this variety of business enter- prises Mr. Porter was essentially and always a farmer. He consid- ered farming his proper vocation, gave attention chiefly to that, and was more interested in it than in any other of his pursuits. He was in an important sense a self-made man, working his own way and earning his own money from the first.
* The Scovill house, the old factory of the American Pin company, the old Bronson library, the old Apothecaries' hall and the Citizens' bank are among the buildings made of bricks from his yard.
+ Mr. Porter was the most considerable brick maker in the town, and for many years the only one, but bricks had been burned at an earlier date on North Willow street, near Ridgewood, and probably at other places. See p. 195 .- F. J. K.
Timothy Porter
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THE BAPTIST CHURCHES.
It is not, however, on his success as a business man that Mr. Porter's chief claim to the remembrance of his fellow townsmen must rest. He was emphatically a thinker, having a high appre- ciation of the importance of truth, and being largely gifted with moral courage. He never compromised with his convictions, even when they could be followed only at the sacrifice of popularity and material interests. Brought up in the Episcopal church, he became a Baptist when the Baptists were not only unpopular, but were too poor to own a church building; and he early became a deacon and preacher in this communion. In the rude structure erected about 1818, known later as "the old Baptist meeting-house," he preached for about eight years, accepting no compensation and generally studying his sermons while at work in the field. The church was remarkably prosperous during this period and received many accessions. In 1834, when the Baptists undertook the work of erecting a church building at the centre of the town, Mr. Porter ceased serving as a preacher, having enough to do in looking after the finances of the new enterprise .*
In politics Mr. Porter was a Whig until the commencement of the anti-slavery agitation about 1840. Then his strong sense of justice, his warm sympathy for the oppressed, his independence of mind and action, and his habit of following his convictions, led him to join the so-called Liberty party. In the early times of this agitation no one could be prominent as an anti-slavery man except at the risk of obloquy, nor without some sacrifice of his personal interests, but Mr. Porter never allowed any weight to such con- siderations in determining his course. He identified himself promptly and unreservedly with the movement, and was for many years the nominee for representative of a party which in the whole town numbered scarcely a dozen adherents. His house became the resort of anti-slavery lecturers, as of Baptist preachers, and even served on occasion as a station for the "underground railroad." He had the power of logical, consecutive thought to a remarkable degree, and considerable ability as an extemporaneous speaker, and a debate in which he engaged with the Hon. Green Kendrick on the slavery question, in the old stone academy, is still mentioned with interest and admiration by some of the older inhabitants.
* In his preaching days Mr. Porter was often called upon to perform the marriage ceremony. He used to say that the parties came to him as a minister, but that he married them as a justice of the peace. It was only as a justice that he possessed the requisite authority, but he performed the ceremony in a minis- terial rather than a judicial way. He was popular as a justice, and was called " squire " as o'ten as deacon, and many important cases were tried before him. The lawyers would drive out from the centre with their witnesses, and call him in from the field, and he would hold the court in a room of his own house. At other times he occupied a room in the centre of the town for the purpose.
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HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
Before leaving the Whig party he represented the town in the legislature, and held other important offices. While he was select- man, an important lawsuit between Waterbury and Prospect, in which the latter was represented by counsel from New Haven, came to trial, when by some misunderstanding the Waterbury lawyers were under imperative engagements elsewhere. He con- ducted and argued the case for the town entirely unaided and won a favorable verdict. Acting in the several capacities of selectman, town agent and chairman of a special committee, he purchased the property since known as the town farm, and established Captain Isaac Castle upon it in charge of the poor, thus inaugurating the system which has continued in successful operation down to the present time. (See elsewhere.)
Without having enjoyed any special advantages for education Mr. Porter found time amid his various employments for much reading, the natural bent of his mind leading him generally to prefer thoughtful and argumentative works. Pope's Essay on Man was his favorite poem, and he was almost as familiar with it as with the Bible, as is evidenced by his frequent quotations from it.
Mr. Porter's first wife died in 1822, leaving a son, Joseph, and two daughters, Mary A., who married the Rev K. Arvine, a Baptist minister, and Jane E., who married Joseph C. Welton. (See page 337.) Three years after the death of his first wife he married Polly Ann, daughter of Hezekiah Todd. By her he had five sons, two of whom, Timothy H., and David G., are graduates of Yale college. (For the other three, Nathan T., Thomas and Samuel, see pages 251 to 253.)
Mr. Porter died in August, 1864, at the age of seventy-three, having lived to see the final overthrow of American slavery, and the practical triumph of the cause for which he had labored so long.
THE REV. IRENUS ATKINS.
As a Baptist minister of the old time, or rather as connecting the old with the more recent, Irenus Atkins stands as an excellent example. He was born in Southington, November 15, 1792. His father, Samuel Atkins, was originally an adherent of the "standing order," but in 1793 we find his name affixed to a declaration in favor of religious freedom, in which the signers also signified their adherence to the Baptist faith as most in accordance with that principle. His mother was the daughter of Elder John Wight- man, and he was thus connected with a family celebrated in the
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history of Connecticut Baptists, and which numbered among its members the illustrious Edward Wightman .*
When about eight years of age, Irenus removed with his father's family to Bristol. He was converted under the preaching of Daniel Wildman at the age of twenty-two. On reaching his majority he commenced business as a mechanic and manufacturer in Bristol. He began to preach within a few years after his conversion, but did not give up his business. +
Without other education than that afforded by the common schools and the Bible, Mr. Atkins became so acceptable a preacher that he was soon called to supply the pulpit of the Southington church, one of the oldest Baptist churches in the state. He con- tinued business in Bristol for four or five years while preaching regularly for this church, but was at length induced to remove to Southington and devote his whole time to the pastorate. His work there was successful to an unusual degree. The membership of the church was increased by many and important additions, its regular worship at the centre, which had been discontinued, was restored and largely attended, and a period of gratifying prosperity suc- ceeded. But after twelve years, believing that a change would be for the good of the church and desirable also for himself on account of the condition of his health, he resigned the pastorate and returned soon after to his manufacturing in Bristol.
Although regularly ordained, Mr. Atkins seems not to have regarded himself as a professional minister. He was rather a man for emergencies, aiming to support himself and his family by his business and standing ready to do any Christian work to which the Lord might call him. He did not have long to wait. The Water- bury church, having fallen into financial difficulties and being unable to support a pastor, turned to him for assistance, and its expectation was not in vain. With the help of his partner in busi- ness, Orasmus Allen, who also was a Baptist preacher, he undertook to supply the destitute and impoverished church, and for a period of about five years these men ministered most acceptably to the wants of the congregation. Mr. Allen was the more intellectual of the two, but Mr. Atkins seemed to possess a higher spirituality, and
* Eunice Wightman, the mother of Irenus Atkins, was the grand-daughter of Valentine Wightman, the pioneer of religious freedom for Connecticut, and Valentine Wightman was the great-grandson of Edward Wightman the last English martyr, who, having been condemned as a heretic for opposition to infant baptism and for other similar offences, was burned at the stake at Lichfield, in April, 1611.
+ The few Baptist churches in the state were then feeble and their members seldom or 'never rich, so that the Baptist ministry gave small promise of comfortable support. Frequently, therefore, those who ministered to these churches chose to depend wholly or in part upon their own resources for subsistence, preferring not to exact from their people more than they could comfortably pay. Except for the gratuitous and self-sacrificing labors of such men the Baptist cause in Connecticut would have made but doubtful prog- ress.
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HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
although he had less ability as a sermonizer his discourses were generally better appreciated by the people.
The connection of Mr. Atkins with the Waterbury church did not close with his pastorate. He enjoyed the confidence of the members to such a degree, and his residence in Bristol made him so easily accessible, that he was frequently called upon to supply its pulpit, to administer ordinances and fulfill other ministerial func- tions during a period of nearly half a century. He stood in a similar relation to the churches in Southington, Meriden and New Britain, and during the closing years of his life he preached for the church in Canton under circumstances similar to those in which he had served the Waterbury church so many years before. He died while on a visit to Southington at the age of eighty-nine. The only surviving member of his immediate family is Andrew Fuller Atkins, president of the Bristol Brass and Clock company.
Though Mr. Atkins was a business man, no one would ever have suspected from his appearance in the pulpit that he was anything but a minister. A look of benign, almost apostolic serenity per- vaded his countenance and made his words impressive, and there was never the slightest suggestion in his preaching of insincerity or cant. He was tall in stature, dignified and gentlemanly in his bearing, and although he lived to so advanced an age he was not " old fashioned " in manner or speech. In his intercourse with his fellow men he was kindly, courteous and affable, but manifested on occasion great positiveness and independence of character. His memory is held in high esteem by those members of the Baptist church with whom the remembrance of his faithful ministry still lingers.
THE REV. J. A. BAILEY.
Joseph A. Bailey was born in Middletown, August 17, 1823. After he had grown to manhood he decided to obtain a collegiate education and entered the Wesleyan university in his native town. He graduated from there in 1846 and two or three years later entered the Baptist Theological seminary at Rochester, N. Y., where he completed his preparatory training for the ministry in 1851. He returned immediately to Connecticut and became pastor of the Baptist church in Essex, where he remained until 1855. In September of that year he accepted a call to the pastorate of the Baptist church in this city. He entered upon his work here with great earnestness and devotion, and was permitted from year to year to gather a harvest of spiritual fruits.
In 1872, after a prosperous ministry of seventeen years, Mr. Bailey's health began to fail. An absence of several months from
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THE BAPTIST CHURCHES.
his pulpit did not restore it, and he determined during the winter to try the effects of a sea voyage and European travel. He sailed for Hamburg in March, 1873, and proceeded thence to Carlsbad in Bohemia, to make use of its famous waters, but under the new treatment grew rapidly worse and died May 11, leaving a widow and four children.
The results of Mr. Bailey's ministry are briefly summed up in the preceding history of the Baptist church. In the Waterbury American of May 30, 1873, the following editorial estimate of his character and work appeared. The relations of Mr. Bailey and the writer of the notice had not been always cordial, but now, after twenty-two years, the anonymous editor takes pleasure in reproduc- ing and setting in a more permanent place the picture he then painted:
Mr. Bailey will be long remembered in Waterbury as an earnest and fervid preacher, a laborious pastor, an advocate of all genuine reforms and public improvements, and a sympathizing friend. During the eighteen years of his ministry in this city, his devotion to the interests of his church and of the denomi- nation to which it belongs was unfaltering, but at the same time he found oppor- tunity to do an extended and useful work in the temperance reform and other similar causes. He possessed a decided power of organization and was thus enabled to keep his church in the pathway of prosperity. For many years he was the acting school visitor, and he took the deepest interest in popular education and in the modern questions connected therewith. In character he was positive but genial, in his theology conservative but practical. He sympathized thoroughly with the sentiments and methods of "evangelical" Christians, cherished their hopes, and doubtless died in the full conviction of the truth of their doctrines.
One of Mr. Bailey's sons, who bears his name in full, has followed in his steps in entering the Baptist ministry and doing good service therein.
THE REV. W. P. ELSDON.
William Portmore Elsdon, son of James and Esther (Portmore) Elsdon, was born at Halifax, Nova Scotia, September 21, 1841. At the age of ten, he removed with his family to St. John, New Bruns- wick, and two or three years later to Frederickton. He received his education at the public schools of Halifax, at a private school at St. John, and at the Baptist seminary and at King's College, Frederickton.
Without waiting to graduate from college, he went into business with his father. The enterprise proved unsuccessful, and he de- cided to enter the Methodist ministry, to which his father, who was an ardent Methodist, had dedicated him in his childhood. } He was licensed to preach by the conference of the Maritime Prov- inces of the Wesleyan Methodist church of Canada.
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