USA > Connecticut > Fairfield County > Bridgeport > Two hundred fifty years, the story of the United Congregational Church of Bridgeport, 1695-1945 > Part 4
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Every period of bitter conflict develops its underground movements, and England in the eighteenth century was no exception. Often thrilling episodes occurred. There must have been great excitement in the Blatchford home one early morning when Mrs. Blatchford and her brother en- tered a post-chaise to convey to London a certain Captain Samuel Smedley, Collector of Customs in Fairfield, Con- necticut, who had escaped from the Dartmoor prison. Twice the party was stopped by British officers; but the Captain, concealed by cloaks on the bottom of the chaise, was undiscovered. He reached London safely and eventu- ally boarded a vessel bound for New York. It is not strange that such experiences created a determination in the mind of young Samuel some day to go to America.
Samuel Blatchford was born in 1767. His parents were extremely devout, dissenters from the established church and followers of John Wesley. When the boy was only eight or nine years old he felt, in the language of the day, that he had received a "call" to preach, and after much
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searching of heart he dedicated himself to that service. After completing his education, he was ordained and preached in a Presbyterian church near Exeter.
About this time Robert Raikes was attracting much at- tention in England by gathering the neglected children of Gloucester into groups on the Sabbath for instruction in reading and writing, thus becoming, quite unconsciously, the father of the modern Sunday School. Mr. Blatchford, too, was concerned over the children of his parish who worked long hours picking old ropes into fibers for oakum, which was used in caulking boats. These children were en- tirely without education and never entered any house of worship. Accordingly he attempted to follow Mr. Raikes's example, but he encountered vigorous opposition from those who asserted that he was trying to draw the children away from the Established Church and that it was danger- ous to teach them to read and write. It was as preposterous, they argued, to try to reform society by educating the youth as it would be to commence building a house at the top of the chimney. Nevertheless he persisted, organizing and supervising two Sunday Schools for boys and two for girls.
Such bigotry and opposition strengthened his early de- sire to come to America, the land of freedom in govern- ment and in religion. By correspondence a position was se- cured, as he believed, with a church in Bedford, New York; and in 1795, with his wife and four small children, he set out on the six weeks' voyage. He arrived, penniless, to find that in the meantime another minister had been en- gaged; but an arrangement was made whereby the two ministers would alternate between the churches of Bed- ford and Poundridge. There were hours of bitter despair when he contrasted the rude, unplastered church in Bed- ford and the cheerless, unfurnished rooms in which he and his family must live with the comfortable home and
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church that he had left in Devonshire; but when, shortly before his death he dictated his unfinished autobiography, the facts he remembered best were not the hours of dis- couragement, but rather the courage of his wife, the kind- ness of friends, and the protecting providence of God.
After a few months he was invited to preach for one year in Greenfield Hill, succeeding Dr. Timothy Dwight, who had resigned to become president of Yale. In 1797 he ac- cepted a call to the church in Stratfield.
Because he was at heart a teacher as well as a preacher, and also to eke out the family income, Mr. Blatchford opened an academy for boys in which he did a valuable work. That the income needed enlarging required no ar- gument, for the church paid a salary of only five hundred dollars and the family increased year by year. Altogether there were seventeen children, twelve of whom lived to maturity, several of them becoming prominent in the busi- ness, the professional, or the political field. It is not strange that when, in 1804, he received a call to the churches of Lansingburgh and Waterford, New York, for what seemed a greater field of opportunity and at a substantially in- creased salary, he accepted.
During the twenty-four years of his Waterford pastorate, he was, also, prominent in the educational world, being a teacher at Union College and taking an active interest in the establishment of Rensselaer Institute, of which he was the first president. He was honored by a degree of Doctor of Divinity from Williams. He died in 1828.
While he was in Stratfield, Mr. Blatchford, beside being pastor of a church, teacher in an academy, and head of a large family, somehow found time for the broader interests of the church. For three years in succession, 1798, 1799, and 1800, and again in 1802, he was elected delegate to the General Association of Congregational Churches in the Colony of Connecticut, meeting successively in Hebron,
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Hartford, Norfolk, and Norwalk. Such reëlections to a body for which rotation of delegates was usually practiced is significant proof of the regard in which he was held throughout the entire state.
It was at Hebron, on June 19, 1798, that the Missionary Society of Connecticut was organized, and Mr. Blatchford was a member of the committee appointed to "draw up an address to the inhabitants of the State" urging the need for this society.
The responsibility of the church for missionary work had long been recognized, and some attempt had been made to meet it. As early as 1774 the General Assembly had voted to send two missionaries "to examine the state of the new settlements." Advertisements were inserted in several newspapers, and appeals were sent to all churches for sub- scriptions for "Christianizing the waste places," or "the wilderness," of Connecticut. Later the field was broadened to include neighboring states except Massachusetts, which had a missionary movement of its own; and still later to "Christianizing the heathen in North America."
During the Revolutionary War this program was neces- sarily interrupted, although the General Association con- tinued its annual meetings. Mr. Ross took an active part in these meetings, serving on several important committees, and as soon as possible the plans thus conceived were put into execution. It was determined that the missionaries should be ministers who could be spared for at least a two- month period, and they were allowed four and a half dol- lars a week for expenses. According to an act passed by the General Assembly in 1792, funds for this work were to be raised by appointing the first Sunday in May as Missionary Sunday, and a proclamation was issued each year by the governor, "Commending the subject to the good people of the State." The response was generous, gifts being made both in the form of money and of bequests such as 76 acres
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of land from one donor and a square mile of land from an- other.
New Hampshire and Vermont, New York and Pennsyl- vania, were frontier regions in those days, sparsely settled and reached only by tiresome and often hazardous jour- neys, usually on horseback. Often men were in the saddle almost continuously for weeks at a time, riding hundreds of miles in winter as well as in summer, preaching, explor- ing, founding churches. As settlements moved outward, missionaries followed, traveling as far west as Wisconsin and Nebraska and as far south as Louisiana. During the first ninety years three hundred five missionaries were sent out and more than five hundred churches were organized, often under conditions impossible for us to conceive. In addition, these heroic men rendered services not counted by statistics as they visited isolated communities, per- formed marriages and conducted funerals, administered the sacrament, comforted the sick and sorrowing, and in countless other ways brought help and encouragement to people homesick for the churches they had left behind.
And it is significant that most of these itinerant preach- ers were men of education, usually college graduates. One of the glories of Congregationalism is that it has consist- ently stood for the extension of education and for an edu- cated ministry. The regions that were settled during the expansion movement of the nineteenth century owe a great debt to the churches of New England, a debt that is often unrecognized because the heroic story of missionary adventure is too often unknown.
But there was another side to this achievement. Little did Samuel Blatchford and his fellow ministers who or- ganized the Missionary Society in 1798 think that the bread which they were casting upon the waters flowing westward would, in future years, return to the very spot whence it was cast forth. A century later one church after another,
1
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struggling into being in this very city of Bridgeport, was made possible by the aid of the Connecticut Home Mis- sionary Society: Park Street, Olivet, West End, King's Highway, Swedish Congregational, Italian Congrega- tional, Bethany. Truly these foresighted founders builded better than they knew.
Mr. Blatchford's successor was the Reverend Elijah Waterman. Born in the town of Bozrah, in New London County, Mr. Waterman had graduated from Yale, had studied theology with Dr. Dwight at Greenfield Hill, and had been for ten years pastor of the church in Windham. He was installed at Stratfield in 1806 and remained until his death in 1825. Those nineteen years were years of vital and far-reaching changes; one might almost say that they marked the rebirth, the renaissance of the church, and Mr. Waterman proved himself an able leader.
The first important event of his ministry was the dedica- tion, in 1807, of a new church building located on Broad Street, a project which was already under way when he commenced his pastorate. There had been vigorous oppo- sition on the part of the Stratfield residents to the removal of the church from its old location, but the growing impor- tance of the village near the harbor made the change in- evitable. According to the census of 1810, the population of the borough was 1089, of whom 867 lived west of the Pequonnock River, and there were listed one hundred twenty-three houses. Already important streets had been laid out-Main, Broad, State, Fairfield, Bank, and John- but the district was purely residential. Stores and shops were to be found only on Water Street. In the rest of the area were pleasant homes, the houses usually two stories high and painted white, the wide lawns and attractive gar- dens reaching often to the water front. Mr. Waterman built his own house on Golden Hill, where probably even the twelve-acre Nimrod Lot to which the Indian reserva-
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tion had been reduced forty years before had disappeared. A few years later he constructed a trough from a spring on his land to the corner of Main and Cannon Streets in order that the water might be used by people of the village as well as by vessels coming into the harbor. This was the first attempt to provide a public water supply. Only a church was needed to make the village by the harbor complete.
Broad Street was the ideal location. Indeed, St. John's Church, moved by similar considerations, had already se- lected a site, had razed the old building on King's High- way, and had begun reconstructing it on Broad Street, fac- ing north on State. Between State and Bank Streets, where the City Hall now stands, was a small green, and beyond that green was a lot, bounded by Bank, Broad, and John Streets, which belonged to the Hubbell family. The Hub- bells had been staunch members of the church since its or- ganization, when the two Richards, father and son, and the women, Abigail and Temperance, constituted four of the original twenty-four members. The piety of the family must have been indicated by the names they gave their children, for the list of Hubbells in the early church rec- ords reads like a roll call of Bible heroes: Abraham, Isaac, Joseph, and Aaron; David, Jonathan, Ephraim, and Daniel; Ebenezer, Amos, Nehemiah, Ezekiel, Zachariah, and of course the inevitable Samuel, with Onesimus for good measure-not to mention the "females," Miriam, Esther, Hannah, Rebecca, and many more .* It was the third Richard, the Lieutenant, for thirty years a deacon, who bequeathed to the church one of its prized solid silver tankards. Apparently it was not uncommon to give or be- queath silver which had been a personal possession and
* Ministers, too, in the early Connecticut records laid claim to names that sound strange to us: Azel, Ammi, Achilles, Ashbel, Benoni, Cyprian, Cyrus, Dan, Elizur, Eliphalet, Gad, Ichabod, Izrahiah, Jehu, Jedidiah, Noadiah, Ozias, and Uriel.
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had not been especially designed for communion pur- poses. In Richard's will occurs the statement, "My will is and I do hereby give my Silver Tankard to the Church of Christ in Stratfield for ye use of ye Lords Tabell." The tankard, which was made by Peter Van Yok (1684-1750), silversmith of New York, bears this inscription: "Last Rich'd Hubbell's Gift to the Church of Christ in Strat- field, A.D. 1738."
Ensign Hezekiah Hubbell, the original owner of the Broad Street property, had died; and his son, Ezra Hub- bell, in 1805 deeded the land to the church on condition that it should be used perpetually "for training band pur- poses or for church purposes." Plans were immediately be- gun, and the year after Mr. Waterman's installation the building was completed. At first, in deference to that part of the congregation that still lived in Stratfield, it was de- cided to meet in each building on alternate Sundays; then the new church appropriated three Sundays out of four, and finally it became the only place of meeting. The old building, which was later used by the Methodist Church, remained standing until 1834, and a gavel made from the wood in the building is in the possession of the Barnum Museum.
The new building on Broad Street, facing Bank, was also a frame structure with a steeple, but it was larger than the old one and more pretentious. For six years there was no bell; then the bell from the old church, which had been purchased in 1774 and weighed about four hundred pounds, was moved to the Broad Street building. Fifteen years later a new bell, weighing ten hundred sixty-four pounds, was purchased at a cost of $478.88.
Whatever lighting there was, was probably by candles, there being no mention of lamps until 1832 when thirty- four dollars was appropriated for their purchase. In the
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same year a weather vane was added to the steeple, and twenty and a half yards of carpeting was purchased, prob- ably for the platform on which stood the traditional high pulpit with steps leading up to it. By 1835, however, the fashion had changed and the pulpit was lowered.
There was a gallery in the rear, the front seats of which were occupied by the singers. Four other pews in the gal- lery were reserved for strangers, those on the east side be- ing for ladies only. We do not know when "choristers" were first introduced, but in 1809 we find it to be "the pleasure of the meeting that Henry May, Anson Sherman, Nash Couch, and Thomas Cook Wordin be added Chor- isters to this Society." Chorister May was evidently an espe- cially efficient leader, for five years later thanks were offi- cially tendered him "for his late attendance and sensibly reviving the singing department." In 1810 fifty dollars was set aside from the pew rent "toward compensating a Chor- ister for instructing singers and leading in public wor- ship," and a committee of three was named "to receive and apply the above sum and superintend the music depart- ment."
Spartan endurance was yielding to the demand for com- fort, for in 1812 it was voted that "This Society have no ob- jection of a Stove being placed in the new meeting house, if by subscription without the expense of the Society."
President Dwight of Yale wrote: "There is not in the State a prettier village than the Borough of Bridgeport. The style of building adopted is unusually happy. None of the houses are large or splendid, but almost all of them, to- gether with their appendages, leave upon the mind an im- pression of neatness and cheerfulness, not often found else- where. There are two churches in this village; an Episco- pal and a Presbyterian (Congregational); both respectable buildings,-appearing like twins on the opposite sides of a
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small green. The two parts of Bridgeport are connected by a bridge, ninety rods in length, which crosses the Pequon- nock in the center of the village, and was the origin of the name."
Surely the inhabitants took a pardonable pride in the new borough, and even the residents of Stratfield, loath though they were to lose their neighborhood church, must have shared in that pride and journeyed, not unwillingly, on foot, on horseback, or by carriage to the village by the harbor where the twin churches faced each other across the green.
The new church was an auspicious beginning for Mr. Waterman's ministry, but there were other changes even more significant and far reaching. During the last years of the eighteenth century and the early years of the nine- teenth, religion everywhere was at a low ebb. War and pes- tilence had raged. Infidelity and the philosophy of mate- rialism had undermined the foundations of spiritual faith. The spirit of independence which, under the encourage- ment of the church, had succeeded in overturning a gov- ernment and overthrowing all external authority, was now at work against the very church that had inspired it. No longer would a tradition or a creed be accepted unques- tionably; no longer could a preacher of great intellect and strong personality dominate his parishioners. With the doffing of his wig, his knee breeches and silver buckles, the minister had stepped from his pedestal; he had become a man among men. In time this new spirit of questioning and inquiry would become the strength of the church; the destruction of what was narrow and intolerant would lead to the construction of something finer and more satisfying. But in the meantime there was a great upsetting of estab- lished values and an alarming decrease of respect for things
* Quoted in Dr. Palmer's Historical Address.
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religious. The Age of Reason was not an age in which reli- gious faith and the Christian virtues could flourish.
This general condition was plainly reflected in the local church. Whereas Mr. Cooke in 1731 had reported one hundred thirteen members in full communion, Mr. Wa- terman in 1806 found forty-seven in full communion, only seventeen of whom were males, and in addition thirty-six men and thirty-three women who had owned the covenant and brought their children for baptism. But that a people who had endured so many difficulties and discouragements still had enough courage and faith in the future to build a new church, call a new minister, and set their faces reso- lutely toward a period of new development-this in itself was a sufficient answer to the shallow philosophy of the Age of Reason.
Efforts had indeed been made to stem the tide of irreli- gion. The Fairfield County East Consociation had held a formal debate upon the subject, "What shall be done to put a Stop to the Growth of Infidelity?" The General As- sembly appointed a committee to inquire into the situa- tion. They found the underlying causes to be neglect of public worship and contempt of authority, both secular and religious. They passed new and stricter laws regarding Sunday observance, imposing a fine of fifty cents for each failure to attend religious services. But debate and legisla- tion were alike powerless; only some new spirit from within could effect a change. The change came, unostenta- tiously but powerfully, in a movement that became known as "The Second Awakening."
Signs of this Awakening had appeared at the very end of the eighteenth century in the form of revivals of religious interest in different churches of the state; and during the first half of the nineteenth century these revivals occurred in one church after another, at more frequent intervals
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and with certain peak periods, until there was scarcely a town in which their effect was not felt.
Unlike the "Great Awakening" of 1740, this movement was not led by outside evangelists like Whitefield; rather it was fostered and directed by local ministers in their own churches. Unlike the earlier movement, too, it was accom- panied by no great emotional upheavals. Much of the harsh theology of the earlier day still persisted, and there was great wrestling for salvation against sin; but on the whole, this was a quiet, steady renewal of faith and a deep- ening of spiritual life-"a purified and sobered Great Awakening"-and its effects were far reaching and en- during.
The most obvious and immediate effect was the marked increase in church attendance and church membership. For example, when Dr. Dwight became president of Yale in 1795, out of some two hundred students only four or five were church members, and this proportion held true in practically every college. In the revival of 1802 at least one- third of the students of Yale were converted, and half of that number became ministers; while in succeeding years great numbers of other students joined the college church or united with their home churches. In the Bridgeport church a similar increase occurred; during the nineteen years of Mr. Waterman's pastorate there were added to the forty-seven members with which he commenced about three hundred and sixty.
Besides amazing increases in church membership, the Awakening brought other changes of great import. One important change was the repeal in 1806 by the General Association of Congregational Churches of the Half-Way Covenant, that compromise which for generations had allowed people to secure the benefits of church member- ship without assuming its obligations. Hereafter member- ship involved acceptance of the full covenant.
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Of still more fundamental importance because it af- fected churches of all denominations was the complete separation of church and state. If it seems strange to us that people who had fled from England to escape the tyranny of a state church should allow a large measure of state domi- nation to occur in the new world, we must remember that it was the strength of their religious conviction which had caused them to flee, and they were therefore determined that religion should be the foundation of government in the American colonies. Since the men who formed the church were also the men who made the laws, it was only natural that provision should be made in those laws for the support and protection of the church and the extension of its work. It is understandable too that they saw in the grow- ing strength of other denominations, particularly of the Episcopal Church which was so closely linked with the Church of England, a dangerous threat to that freedom which they had struggled so hard to secure. As a matter of fact, religious toleration was far greater in Connecticut than in many other sections of the country, although the full meaning of that phrase was understood by few people anywhere until a much later period of history than this.
It was a step toward religious freedom when the Legisla- ture decreed that an individual tax might be designated for the support, not necessarily of the Congregational Church, but of any recognized church. Nevertheless the demand for complete separation grew, and it was bitterly fought. The great Dr. Dwight, for example, insisted that dire consequences, moral and religious, would follow sepa- ration. Lyman Beecher asserted that the withdrawal of state support from the churches "would open the flood- gates of ruin on the state." But liberalism finally won, and in 1818 the state abolished the tax and relinquished all control over the church. Later, even its enemies like Beecher admitted that disestablishment was the best thing
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that could have happened to the churches. Religious lib- erty was at last complete.
While this contest was going on, the country was again plunged into war. The War of 1812 was not popular in New England, but the inhabitants of a coastal town with a large maritime trade could not escape its effects. Bridge- port ships were seized and their sailors impressed into the British navy. The embargo tied up all shipping, and great financial loss resulted. The war increased the burdens of minister and people, and great was the rejoicing when the bells finally pealed forth the victory.
One other effect of the Awakening remains to be noted, and that by no means the least. Whereas the Great Awak- ening of 1740 seems to have caused people to be concerned chiefly over their own salvation, this later movement aroused a social consciousness which expressed itself in hu- manitarian organizations of various kinds: charitable so- cieties, institutions for the handicapped and the insane, prison reform movements, peace organizations. Sunday Schools were organized in many parts of the country, the first one being in Philadelphia in 1791. Their main pur- pose, however, here as in England, was to give neglected children the rudiments of education. The first Sunday School in Bridgeport was organized by Platt Benedict in 1814, but the church, recognizing its possibilities, soon took it over, changing the emphasis from secular to reli- gious education.
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