USA > Connecticut > Fairfield County > Bridgeport > Two hundred fifty years, the story of the United Congregational Church of Bridgeport, 1695-1945 > Part 2
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TWO HUNDRED FIFTY YEARS
pounds, which included property in England as well as in this country.
Mr. Chauncey had shown himself to be a man of courage and ability. It was largely through his influence that the right to organize a church had been granted by the General Assembly. He had gathered the church and superintended the erection of the building. He had multiplied its mem- bership and secured for it recognition in the county and the state. The church was destined to increase in numbers and in influence as the years went by, and the name of the Reverend Charles Chauncey is a name worthy to head the long list of ministers who were to succeed him.
- II
THE ENLARGEMENT OF THE CHURCH
1715-1747
Mª ANY were the problems that confronted the young Stratfield Church. To be sure, it was now nearly fifty years since the first settle- ments had been made. The number of families had been steadily increasing, and log cabins were giving place to frame houses; but conditions were still primitive and life was hard. Indians were troublesome and dangerous. Su- perstition abounded. The shadow of witchcraft that had hung over the town of Fairfield had scarcely vanished. A few years before the settlement of Pequonnock Goodwife Knapp, mother of Nathaniel, who was one of the early members of the church, had been tried and executed, just across the boundary line, in the presence of a large com- pany of spectators. The last witchcraft trial in Connecticut was held in Fairfield only three years before the establish- ment of the church when Mercy Disborough was sen- tenced to execution, Captain John Burr, son of the Major, being one of the magistrates, and Isaac Wheeler, one of the church founders, a member of the jury. The verdict was later set aside, however, and the woman was pardoned. Heated were the discussions and bitter the conflicts that arose among individuals and between groups over matters personal, social, or theological. Religion and morality were at a low ebb. Obviously there was no dearth of problems confronting the church and its ministers.
In 1715, a year after the death of Mr. Chauncey, the Rev-
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TWO HUNDRED FIFTY YEARS
erend Samuel Cooke was called to the pastorate. Mr. Cooke was a native of Guilford, and his experience in the meeting of problems must have commenced at an early age. His father died when the boy was fourteen, and the prospect for an education looked dark; but the General Court granted permission, at the request of the lad and his guardian, for the sale of a house and lot belonging to the estate in order to carry out "the great desire of Thomas Cooke, deceased, to bring up this his son in learning." Ac- cordingly we find him graduating, four years later, in 1705, from Yale College. This college had been founded only four years before in Saybrook by a group of Connecticut ministers, the Reverend Israel Chauncey of Stratford be- ing one of the leaders. These men were actuated in part by the desire to have a college located at a point more acces- sible than Cambridge, but still more by their fear that Connecticut youth would be contaminated by the unor- thodox tendencies of Harvard. In their own words, they founded this institution to educate young men "for public employment both in church and civil state," especially to "educate ministers in our own way." The first graduate, in 1702, was Nathaniel Chauncey, nephew of Israel.
After graduating from Yale, Mr. Cooke studied the- ology and then became rector of Hopkins Grammar School in New Haven. In 1715 there were two church vacancies, one in New Haven and one in the Stratfield Church. He doubtless would have preferred the New Haven position; but, failing that, he accepted the call to Stratfield at a salary of one hundred pounds and firewood, a salary which in the latter part of his ministry he found some difficulty in col- lecting, probably because of friction within his congrega- tion. His home was on Cooke's Lane, opposite the house where Mr. Chauncey had lived. According to an early au- thority, "He was a man whose personal dignity was long remembered in the parish, and was held in the highest re-
THE ENLARGEMENT OF THE CHURCH 23 spect-somewhat in fear. He was particularly careful in his personal appearance. This comprised a heavy curled wig, black coat, and small clothes, shoes with silver buckles, and over all a black gown or cloak."
Although the minister found life in a colonial parish full of problems, it is a safe assumption that his wife found hers even more difficult. Mr. Cooke was married four times, three of his wives dying in their early thirties, and he had ten children. Three of his sons graduated from Yale, presumably becoming ministers, and one of his daughters married a minister. Cooke's Lane could doubtless have told many tales of the dignified parson and his houseful of lively children.
Immediately after the installation of Mr. Cooke, the church turned its attention to the problem of securing adequate accommodations for the congregation, which had now far outgrown the twenty-year-old meeting house. At first it was decided to repair and enlarge the existing building, and a committee, composed of Richard Hub- bell, Thomas Hawley, and James Seeley, was appointed to consult with carpenters. Upon further consideration, how- ever, it was deemed wiser to erect a new building upon a different site, a decision which, curiously enough, was to be duplicated two centuries later. The site chosen was "near the corner of Joseph Trowbridge's orchard, late deceased, on the norwest side of the road between that and the widow Sharman's deceased"-namely at the northwest corner of Park and North Avenues.
A little to the west, at the corner of North and Brook- lawn Avenues, where there is now a small park, was "The Green," or parade ground. "The train band" had been or- ganized in 1703, every able-bodied man being required by law to report regularly for military training. Beyond the Green was the old Pequonnock burying ground, which was used for all Stratfield burials until 1812, when another
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TWO HUNDRED FIFTY YEARS
cemetery was laid out west of Park Avenue. In 1849 Moun- tain Grove Cemetery was opened, and to that plot all bodies from Park Avenue were removed. It was from the old Pequonnock burying ground that the remains of the Reverend Mr. Chauncey, the Reverend Mr. Cooke, and the Reverend Robert Ross of Revolutionary days, as well as those of the first two deacons, Captain David Sherman and Thomas Hawley, were eventually removed and rein- terred in the crypt underneath the tower of the United Church. The tombstones of the three pastors and of Dea- con Sherman were embedded in the walls of the audito- rium, silent reminders of those valiant leaders of the old church in Stratfield.
The new meeting house was to be forty-eight feet long and thirty-eight feet wide, with a long roof. A new com- mittee was appointed, consisting of Major John Burr, Cap- tain David Sherman, Lieutenant Richard Hubbell, Jr., Samuel Sherwood, and Benjamin Fayerweather. The cost was limited to "four hundred and fifty pounds, besides the charge of raising said house." In May, 1717, it was voted that "the committee shall hire men to raise the meeting house and give them three shillings a day, they finding [namely boarding] themselves."
The next year an additional appropriation was voted for the building of a gallery. There was no steeple; in fact, there was no steeple in Connecticut until 1726, when the church in Guilford was built. As Guilford was Mr. Cooke's native town, he may have taken particular interest in that steeple and desired one for his own church, but it was not until 1771, many years after his death, that the addition was made. Dr. Charles Ray Palmer, in his bicentennial ad- dress in 1895, relates a tragic incident that occurred during the pastorate of Mr. Ross, just before the steeple was com- pleted: "On the 28th day of July, 1771, the congregation assembled for worship at the usual morning hour. A storm
THE ENLARGEMENT OF THE CHURCH 25 was gathering, but the service proceeded. The storm proved to be one of appalling severity. The church grew dark, until the form of the minister was hardly visible, as he stood in the exercise of prayer. Suddenly a dazzling flash
The Second Meeting House, 1717
of lightning filled the house, made more terrific by the crash of thunder which followed instantaneously. The voice of the minister broke the awful stillness which en- sued, with the question, 'Are we all here?' It was found that two of the best men of the community, David Sherman and Captain John Burr, who had come to church in the fulness
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TWO HUNDRED FIFTY YEARS
of vigorous life, had been struck dead, and several others had been injured. The impression made by this painful occurrence was profound and lasting."
Despite this tragedy, the steeple was completed, and three years later it was voted: "That the society will get a bell by subscription, and Joseph Strong, Gideon Hubbell, and Edward Burroughs shall be the committee to get the bell." Evidently the first attempt proved unsatisfactory, for a few months later it was voted, "To run the bell over again and pay for it by subscription." Later the following action is recorded: "Voted that ye Society are willing to have the bell ringed at ye usual time on Sabbath days, and other days at 12 of ye clock in ye day and at 9 o'clock at night, and also on lecture day; and whereas Mr. Wolcott Hawley offers to ring ye Bell at ye rate of four pounds and ten shil- lings by ye year for ye first three months, it was agreed to by ye meeting."
This meeting house, though far superior to the earlier one, would seem comfortless indeed today. At first there were no pews, but gradually families were permitted to erect their own. Mr. Cooke led the way, for before the completion of the building we find him petitioning the So- ciety: "Your petitioner requests your favour so far as to grant me the liberty of making a pew for my wife and chil- dren at my own charge in the new meeting-house, on the women's side up by the pulpit. Pray be so kind as to gratify me in this instance, both with respect to the thing itself and the situation of it. I remain yours, in all things I may. Sam'll Cooke."
This petition was obligingly granted. Doubtless, there- fore, Mistress Cooke and her small children occupied the seat of honor just beneath the pulpit, where they could both see and be seen. Other members of the parish were granted, from time to time, similar privileges. These pews, square box-like structures with high backs, with seats on
THE ENLARGEMENT OF THE CHURCH 27 three sides and a door on the fourth, served as individual family compartments. "It was a great step in luxury and dignity," says Dr. Porter,* "which made high and square pews universal, and a great step in convenience and edifica- tion when they were finally abandoned." The deacons oc- cupied a bench, facing the audience, directly underneath the pulpit, where they could easily receive "the perpen- dicular droppings of the word." Men and women were dis- creetly seated on opposite sides of the house, while boys were frequently assigned to the steps leading up to the high pulpit, or to seats in the gallery. In either case they often attracted the attention of the tithing men, whose duty it was to awaken slumbering parishioners or rebuke inatten- tive ones. Discriminating tithing men would rap the knuckles of men and boys with the knob on the end of their rod, while they merely tickled women and girls with the fox's tail or the hare's foot which was attached to the other end. Major Burr won a special dispensation when the so- ciety voted: "That Major John Burr sit with his family in the pew that he has built in the meeting house during the pleasure of the society." Did that action signify special af- fection among the members of the Burr family, or was there some reason why it was desirable for the father to re- main in close proximity to the rest of his household? On that point history is silent.
The neighboring church of Stratford was most specific on the matter of segregation, for we find this record: "Voted that the seats of each gallery shall be seated, the west side gallery with married men, the east gallery with married women, and antiant bachelors and antiant maides the second seats."
With so much etiquette to be observed in the matter of seating, it is not surprising to learn that reconsideration had to be given from time to time to "dignifying the meet-
* Noah Porter, The New England Meeting House, p. 9.
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TWO HUNDRED FIFTY YEARS
ing house," and that this responsibility was delegated to the wisest and most prominent men in the congregation. For example: "Voted that the meeting-house shall be seated by dignity, age, and estate by the present list; and also that David Sharman, Richard Hubbell, John Odell, Samuel Sherwood, and John Burr be a committee to seat the meeting-house, and have power to seat from time to time as they see occasion." The result, if committee rulings happened to conflict with family pride, must be left to the imagination.
There were no lights in the church, nor was there need of any, for night meetings would have been considered highly indecorous. Neither was there any heat. If they were too delicate to sit in an icy building in winter, worshippers might bring their own footstoves filled with hot coals which could be replenished at the house of a neighbor dur- ing the intermission between morning and afternoon serv- ices. As late as 1783, when a stove was installed in the Old South Church in Boston, the Boston Evening Post pub- lished a rhyme* which shows the attitude towards luxuries within the church:
Extinct our sacred fire of love, Our zeal grown cold and dead In the house of God we fix a stove To warm us in their stead.
In some hospitable home, during the intermission, the family might warm themselves, eat the lunch which they had brought, and incidentally exchange the news of the week. This arrangement did not prove wholly satisfactory, however, and six years after the completion of the church it was voted, "That Mr. Edwards shall have Liberty to build a little House somewhere near ye meeting house." Mr. Ed- wards was probably the Captain John Edwards, officer of the British army in Scotland, who was sentenced to be shot
* Quoted by Luther A. Weigle, The Pageant of America, X, 61.
THE ENLARGEMENT OF THE CHURCH 29 as a rebel against the government; but who, on his way to the place of execution, escaped, boarded a vessel which eventually landed in Black Rock Harbor, and lived for some time in cautious retreat in a wood called Chestnut Hill. In 1746 he presented the church with a communion cup that is still in use.
The "little House" which Captain Edwards was author- ized to build was doubtless a "Sabbath-day House," such as was frequently found near a church. We can picture the members of the parish who lived too far away to go home between services gathering in this house, the men in one room and the women in another, warming themselves in front of the great open fireplaces, eating their simple lunch, and discussing the morning sermon or talking over the latest events. While the women probably considered those lighter topics that were thought suitable for the fe- male mind, the men wrestled over knotty problems of the- ology or planned their next moves against Indian terror- ism or British oppression. Then the women refilled their footstoves with fresh coals, the men shouldered their mus- kets, and as the drum beat the signal they straggled back into the meeting house for the long afternoon service.
Attendance at both services was required by law, fines being imposed for voluntary absence, and the sermons and prayers were timed, not by minutes as in modern degener- ate days, but by hours. Children, especially, must have watched eagerly as the sand dripped slowly into the lower part of the hour glass; but that glass might be turned two or three or even four times before the welcome sound of the Amen. Cotton Mather, according to his own diary, when he was ordained at the age of twenty-two, prayed an hour and a quarter and preached an hour and three quarters. In- cidentally, the congregation always stood during the prayer.
The music in the early church would have sounded
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TWO HUNDRED FIFTY YEARS
strangely unfamiliar to us. In their revolt against the cere- monies of the Church of England, the Puritans went to the other extreme and denounced all liturgical practices. "We allow of the people joining with one voice in a plain tune," they said, "but not in tossing the psalms from one side to the other with mingling of organs."* "If we admit instru- mental music into the worship of God," wrote Cotton Mather, "how can we resist the imposition of all the In- struments used among the ancient Jews? Yea, dancing as well as playing, and several other Judaic actions."
The first organ in the colonies was imported by Thomas Brattle of Boston, in 1713, and bequeathed by him to the Brattle Square Congregational Church "if they shall ac- cept thereof, and within a year after my decease procure a Sober person that can play skillfully thereon with a loud noise." However, the church voted, "With all possible re- spect to the memory of our deceased Friend and Benefac- tor, that they did not think it proper to use the same in the public worship of God."
Still, changes must come, even in a conservative Puritan society, and gradually the "New Way" of singing was intro- duced; not, however, without serious dissension among the members of the congregation. Occasionally a compro- mise was reached by which the afternoon service was closed with the singing of hymns in the new manner, those who objected being allowed to withdraw before the singing be- gan. But gradually the pitch pipe and the tuning fork yielded to the bass viol, and later to the organ, separate choirs were formed, the singing school was developed, and music came into its own.
We may smile at these ancient customs; certainly we re- joice that we were born in a more comfortable and a more liberal age; but we should be careful to assess them at their
* Quoted by Luther A. Weigle, The Pageant of America, X, 79.
THE ENLARGEMENT OF THE CHURCH 31 true value. The church was the real school of the people. Books were few, and the newspaper was almost non-exist- ent. Both ministers and people belonged to an era into which modern science, like modern inventions, had not yet come. These ministers, for the most part true shep- herds of their flocks, deserve our deepest respect for their earnestness and sincerity, their love of scholarship, their loyalty to the church they served. "Had it not been for the meeting house and the ministry of its first century, New England would have sunk into barbarism, and neither schoolmaster nor school would have flourished in New England, and if not there, surely nowhere in this land."*
The new church was built in a period of religious de- pression. As has already been noted, religion during the first part of the eighteenth century was at a low ebb. The Half-Way Covenant, which had been adopted, in part at least, to check the alarming decrease in church member- ship, had resulted in a nominal increase of membership but an actual weakening of the sense of spiritual obligation among both individuals and churches. This was true, not only in Connecticut but throughout New England; and al- ready a counteracting force had been set in motion. In the church at Northampton, Massachusetts, under the preach- ing of Jonathan Edwards, a movement had begun which spread rapidly throughout the colonies. This movement, which culminated about 1740, was known as "The Great Awakening."
While Jonathan Edwards was its apostle in Massachu- setts, an English preacher, George Whitefield, now on his second trip to this country, was leading a similar move- ment in Pennsylvania and other colonies to the south. The central theme of their preaching was that there must be a complete regeneration. "The sublime fatalism of Calvin-
* Noah Porter, The New England Meeting House, p. 21.
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TWO HUNDRED FIFTY YEARS
ism"* had maintained that man must wait for salvation to come to him, and if he were not one of the chosen few he was to be pitied but there was little that he could do about it. Edwards and Whitefield, on the contrary, preached that, although man was in dire peril, if he would repent of his sins and submit to God's will wherever that will might lead, he could achieve satisfaction and happiness.
Unfortunately, fiery preachers like Whitefield and some of his followers far exceeded the bounds of fairness and good judgment. They created an emotional atmosphere that among certain types of listeners caused hysterical screaming, fainting, even physical convulsions; or, in the language of the day, "Raptures, Ecstacies, Visions." They fulminated against conservative ministers, calling them unconverted sinners, wolves in sheep's clothing, and devils incarnate. They invaded churches without invitation and stirred up dissension among the members. They cried con- cerning the "unconverted" ministers, "Their Light has be- come Darkness, Darkness that may be felt."
The inevitable result of such preaching was to split churches into factions: the "New Lights" against the "Old Lights." Mr. Cooke, being a gentleman of strong convic- tion and by no means averse to a good quarrel now and then, entered whole-heartedly into the controversy. He was heart and soul with the New Lights. Because of his strong advocacy of the new doctrines, he was forced to re- sign from the position of trustee of Yale, since the corpora- tion of that college adhered strictly to the conservative principles of its founders. As moderator and scribe of the Fairfield Consociation he wrote to Whitefield, inviting him to preach in the Fairfield County churches. White- field, on a tour through New England, accepted the invita- tion and preached in both Stratford and Fairfield. The Stratford meeting seems to have been held in the open air,
* Luther A. Weigle, Pageant of America, X, 2.
THE ENLARGEMENT OF THE CHURCH 33 and people living nearly a mile away are said to have heard the preacher's voice.
Doubtless many members of the Stratfield congregation listened to this preaching, and feeling ran high. Furious must have been the debates at the Little House on Sun- days. Some supported Mr. Cooke and the New Lights; others violently condemned him. Some were converted and joined the church; others were permanently alien- ated. Wherever Whitefield and his followers appeared, similar dissensions occurred. Finally the General Associa- tion in its convention of 1745 took a strong stand against Whitefield's "Many Errors in Doctrine and Disorders in Practice," voting that "It would by no means be advisable for any of our Ministers to admitt him into their Pulpits, nor for any of our people to attend upon his Preaching and Administrations."
The effects of his preaching, however, were not to be undone by any fiat of the Association. One of the immedi- ate local results was the breaking away of a group from the Stratfield Church and the organization of St. John's Epis- copal Church. The Episcopal order had already estab- lished itself in both Stratford and Fairfield, in spite of op- position from the Congregational Church, whose Puritan ancestors not many generations before had fled from the tyranny of the Church of England and who still looked with suspicion upon a church that acknowledged the au- thority of English bishops. However, the excesses of the revivals and the turmoil thereby engendered within the Congregational fold caused some of the more conservative members to look with favor upon a church that had re- mained undisturbed by the preachers of reform. In 1748 St. John's Church was organized, and a building was erected on Church Lane, near the present junction of North and Wood Avenues. It was a frame building with a steeple crowned by a gilded weathercock, emblematic of
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TWO HUNDRED FIFTY YEARS
the cock whose crowing reminded Peter of his guilt in de- nying his Lord. Among the contributors were several men prominent in the Congregational Church, notably Major John Burr, whose name heads the list with the largest sub- scription.
Here Lyes Interra yBodyof ýREV !: MRSAMUEL COOKE : Late Faithfull' Minifter of Stratfield who died Dec .r 2ª J. 747 Aged, 63:1 years.
Tombstone of Rev. Samuel Cooke now in the Cooke Bay of The United Church
The movement generated by Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield was indeed regrettable in its excesses and resulting divisions. On the other hand, it had positive results which influenced the history, not only of the Con- gregational Church, but of Connecticut and, in fact, of the entire country; results which justified the name, "The Great Awakening." It had awakened people from their in- difference. It had challenged the comfortable irreligion of
THE ENLARGEMENT OF THE CHURCH 35 the Half-Way Covenanters and emphasized the impor- tance of a vital religious experience. It had shown by star- tling contrast the dull formality of much of the preaching of the day. It had opposed the domination of the "Standing Order," that apparently unbreakable combination of ultra conservative Congregational leaders in church and state. And this stimulation of thought and discussion, this em- phasis upon the spiritual regeneration of the individual and of the church, this revolt against traditional authority, served to quicken the moral consciousness, to increase the sense of spiritual values, and to develop in men's minds the desire for freedom in all spheres of life. It led directly to the complete separation of church and state; indirectly, but none the less definitely, it led, a generation later, to the determination to be free from all external domination. It was truly a Great Awakening.
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