USA > Connecticut > Fairfield County > Bridgeport > Two hundred fifty years, the story of the United Congregational Church of Bridgeport, 1695-1945 > Part 7
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Reluctant as the people of Bridgeport had been to take any action that might precipitate war, when war came, they were ready to do their part. Lincoln had visited Bridgeport in 1860, when he was campaigning for the Re- publican party. Incidentally, it was here that he ate his first dinner of fried oysters. He came again in 1864 when he was seeking reëlection. Opinions regarding him were divided, and ridicule and sarcasm were freely used by the opposi-
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tion; but four days after he issued his call for volunteers a great rally was held in the city, funds were raised for the families of soldiers, and enlistments far exceeded the quota. Among the volunteers were many from both the North and the South Churches, who served valiantly, sev- eral of them giving their lives in the cause of freedom. Two of the veterans who received the Congressional medal for distinguished bravery on the field were Major William B. Hincks and Lieutenant John C. Curtis. Major Hincks dis- played his bravery in the battle of Gettysburg when he made a spectacular dash through enemy fire and captured the flag of the Fourteenth Tennessee Regiment, a flag which had inscribed on it the names of twelve great battles in which that regiment had taken part. Both men in later years were prominent in their respective churches, Major Hincks being a deacon in the North Church and Lieuten- ant Curtis holding the same office in the South Church.
But despite the war, with all of its attendant evils, both churches continued to grow, increasing in membership and adding to their facilities for service. The First Church added a chapel, largely through the personal efforts of Mr. Matson Meier Smith. It was built by subscription from seventy-eight persons, at a cost of something over five thou- sand dollars and was used for the first time on Christmas Day, 1860. And the same year, with heroic determination, the Second Church set about the task of erecting a new and more nearly adequate edifice. The old church was moved to a vacant lot across the street and occupied while the new one was being constructed. The difficulties of building in wartime must have been almost insurmountable; never- theless the work went forward, and the new structure was completed and dedicated in January, 1862. The spirit in which the people met apparently overwhelming obstacles is illustrated by an entry in the diary of Deacon George Sherwood, a man greatly beloved, who gave unstintingly of
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his time, money, and personal effort. He was one of three who together gave nearly half of the entire amount needed for the enterprise. On his birthday in 1862 he wrote: "Dur- ing the past year I was very much engaged in seeing to the erection of the new church. Much of the care of which de- volved upon myself. I had felt an ambition to see it accom- plished. I had felt its necessity. It was for us to do it if it was to be done; no other would do it for us."
The new building, like that of the North Church which had been dedicated twelve years before, was of brick, a dig- nified structure with steeple and bell and complete with all the improvements of the period. The Women's Benevo- lent Society worked valiantly to provide the furnishings and equipment. A committee went to New York to pur- chase materials and "many of our ladies met with us day after day with untiring zeal to make carpets and cushions which required the hardest kind of labor." Fairs and festi- vals netted a sum of several hundred dollars that was used in the purchase of pulpit furniture and other necessities. The organ was installed in the gallery at the rear of the auditorium. In 1895 both church and chapel were re- modeled, and a fine new organ was placed in the front of the church behind the pulpit.
Yet another evidence of the virility of the church in diffi- cult times was the fact that it recognized its responsibility for sections of the city lying outside of its immediate neigh- borhood. Since 1850 a number of large manufacturing plants had been established east of the river, and popula- tion in that area had greatly increased. On a day in May, 1859, residents of East Bridgeport read the following no- tice posted on various fences and bridges: "Divine Service, and a sermon by the Rev. Alexander R. Thompson, of the South Church, Bridgeport, may be expected next Sabbath afternoon at half-past three o'clock, in the South room (first floor) of Brewster's Coach Factory. There will also be
SECOND CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH DEDICATED 1862
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a Sabbath School in the same place at half-past two o'clock."
There were present at the Sabbath School on that Sun- day in May, in the paint room of the carriage factory on William Street, three teachers and seven pupils; but from that small beginning an important work developed. The Sunday School grew and moved into successively larger quarters, until a small brick chapel was erected on Wash- ington Avenue for its accommodation; this was named Bethesda Chapel. Eventually the school reached an attend- ance of more than four hundred, and some of the garments that were made by the Women's Benevolent Society were designated for the children of this school. Neighborhood prayer meetings were also held regularly in certain homes on the East Side.
The Connecticut Home Missionary Society, which had been organized in 1798 to care for the "waste places" of Connecticut, had been keeping a watchful eye upon cities in which the development of religious opportunities had not been keeping pace with the growth of population. The secretary of this society appealed to the pastors of both the North and South Churches to consider the problem of the East Side, but he met with little response. One pastor was reluctant to lose the support of certain prominent members of his church who lived across the river; the other pastor had reason to believe that the methods employed to increase the membership of the new church would be of the evan- gelistic type, a method to which he was strongly opposed. However, there was one member of each church-Rever- end B. B. Beardsley of the North Church, a retired minis- ter, and Mr. Thomas Lord of the South-who believed earnestly in the importance of the project and who offered to pay the rent of Bethesda Chapel for one year if a church was organized. As the story goes, on the night on which the final decision was to be made one of the pastors, who had
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intended to use all his eloquence to defeat the proposition, lost his voice so that he was unable to speak above a whis- per. The proposal was adopted, and in 1870 the church was organized under the name of Park Street Congregational Church. It had an initial membership of thirty-nine, twenty-three of whom were from the First Church and five from the Second. At first the Home Missionary Society con- tributed a small sum towards its support, but in a very few years it became independent and self-supporting.
In much the same manner Christian education was car- ried to the North End. In 1866 a Sunday School was started by certain members of the First Church in a building on the corner of North Washington Avenue and Grand Street. The first Sunday there were five persons present, two pupils and three teachers; but two years later a church of sixteen members was organized. It was believed by some that the new location, on the corner of Main Street and North Avenue, was too far from the center of the city to be practicable; but as the region around developed, Olivet Church developed with it, exerting its Christian influence throughout the entire area.
By 1870 the war had ended, the long period of uncer- tainty and tension was over, and people were once more facing the future with confidence and courage. The churches, too, were ready to embark upon a new era, an era of greater strength and spiritual development.
In the First Church Dr. Charles Ray Palmer was in- stalled in 1872 and remained until 1895. He was the son of the Reverend Ray Palmer, who is best known as the author of "My Faith Looks Up to Thee," a hymn that was written when the author was only twenty-three years of age. Though born in New Haven, the boy was taken as an in- fant to Bath, Maine, where he grew up and received his preliminary education. He came to Bridgeport equipped with the scholarship of Yale and Andover, the experience
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of a twelve-year pastorate in Salem, Massachusetts, and the enrichment of extensive travel in Europe. He was remem- bered as a scholarly man, erect and dignified in his tall silk hat, and throughout the twenty-three years of his pastorate he was both loved and revered.
While he was pastor of the Tabernacle Church in Salem, he married Miss Mary Barnes, daughter of Alfred S. Barnes who was head of a large publishing house in New York. Mrs. Palmer was an unusual woman, talented, gra- cious, of rare sympathy and understanding; and she con- tributed in no small degree to her husband's successful pas- torate. Deeply interested in the Sunday School, she was for a long time superintendent of the "infant school" and was active in classes for Chinese that for a time were held in the chapel of the North Church. Impressed, as she visited in various homes, with the evil effects of strong drink, she be- came an earnest worker in the Woman's Christian Tem- perance Union. Her interest in missions was unflagging, and in cooperation with Mrs. Edward Johnson, wife of the pastor of the South Church, she organized the Ladies' Aux- iliary of the New Haven Branch of the Woman's Board of Foreign Missions. She was also greatly interested in the school for the children of missionaries in Auburndale, Massachusetts. She declined the presidency both of the New Haven Branch and of the Home Missionary Union of Connecticut, but she often presided over large meetings and always with dignity and grace. Her death at the age of forty-four was an irreparable loss not only to her family and intimate friends but also to the church and to the com- munity at large. In her honor the Woman's Missionary So- ciety adopted the name, The Mary Barnes Palmer Mission- ary Society.
During Dr. Palmer's pastorate three new churches were added to the Congregational family. As we have seen, Park Street and Olivet were organized to meet the religious
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nial flag having been painstakingly reproduced from plates in the possession of a New York museum. On the wall, covered by curtains, were replicas of the four historic edi- fices, including the one in which the celebration was being held; and as each one was mentioned in the address the cur- tain was drawn aside and the model revealed, electrically lighted. The program, in addition to the historical address, included greetings from the mother churches of Stratford and Fairfield and the several daughter churches, as well as from prominent individuals, including Dr. Timothy Dwight, President of Yale, and Mr. Eliphalet Blatchford of Chicago, son and grandson of two of the former pastors of the church.
Dr. Palmer was widely known throughout the denomi- nation, not only in America but also in England. He was the representative of the Congregational Churches of America and of Yale University at the opening of Mans- field College, the only nonconformist college in Oxford University, and made an address upon that occasion. He also attended, as an official representative, the meeting of the International Council in London in 1891, and went from there to Leyden, Holland, where he presented a tab- let in memory of John Robinson, the beloved pastor who bade the Pilgrims Godspeed as they set forth upon their courageous adventure in the new world.
Dr. Palmer had given the church twenty-three years of loyal and effective service, and he felt that the time had come for his retirement. Accordingly, a few days after the close of the bicentennial celebration he submitted his res- ignation. It was accepted with regret and he was named Pastor Emeritus. He moved to New Haven, where he spent many busy and useful years until his death in 1914, one month before his eightieth birthday.
His successor was the Reverend John DePeu, who came to Bridgeport in 1897 after a very successful pastorate in
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Norfolk. He remained fifteen years, resigning in 1912. Mr. DePeu was a man of cultivation and scholarship, a genial companion; and, together with his loyal and gracious wife, he served the church with sincerity and devotion. After leaving Bridgeport, he become pastor of the Congrega- tional Church in Williamstown, Massachusetts, where he remained until his death.
Mr. DePeu was followed by the Reverend Herbert D. Gallaudet, who came to the First Church in 1912 and re- mained until the union of the two churches in 1916. Mr. Gallaudet was a native of Washington, D.C., where his father had been the founder and first president of the Gal- laudet College for the Deaf. He won distinction in Yale and in Union Theological Seminary, and did graduate study in Edinburgh, Scotland. He came to Bridgeport with a background of religious work in the Carolina Mountains and in the Central Congregational Church in Boston of which he had been the assistant pastor. Young and progres- sive, courageous enough to interpret religious truth in the light of modern scholarship and thought, he brought to the church a vitalizing influence of great value. Utterly sincere and self-forgetting, he and Mrs. Gallaudet created an at- mosphere of friendliness that was felt by all, but especially by the young people. Many a boy looked forward all the week to the informal Sunday evenings at the parsonage on Golden Hill, where there would be singing, games, and cheery conversation, while Mrs. Gallaudet passed among the group with a basket of apples or doughnuts, a charm- ing hostess. It was with universal regret that the people ac- cepted his resignation after less than four years of service, as a sacrifice necessary for the accomplishment of the union.
When war came in 1917, Mr. Gallaudet enrolled in the Officer's Training School at Plattsburg, New York, saying that he was ready to serve his country as private, as officer,
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or as chaplain, wherever he was needed most. At Platts- burg he received his commission as Captain of Field Artil- lery, and from there he was sent to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, for further training. He went overseas as captain of a battery of the gogrd Field Artillery, and after his return to this country was promoted to the rank of Major. A characteris- tic incident occurred on the evening that he took com- mand of his battery. At retreat, always an impressive cere- mony, he took off his cap and said to his men, "We are en- tering upon a very difficult and important service together. I am going to offer a prayer to Almighty God for his bless- ing. This is not in any sense a command, but if any of you men wish to join me in that act of reverence, I shall be grateful." Every man in the Battery instantly uncovered and stood while their captain offered an earnest and sin- cere prayer. From that hour they looked upon him as their chaplain as well as their captain, and they were ready to follow him anywhere.
After the war he was pastor of the First Congregational Church of Waterbury until ill health forced his resigna- tion. When World War II came, he was appointed director of air raid warden schools in Connecticut, and before he re- signed, again because of ill health, he had directed the training of 22,000 wardens in 250 schools. He died in June, 1944, at his home in Pine Orchard, Connecticut, and Mrs. Gallaudet followed him on New Year's Day, 1945.
The year 1916 closed another chapter in the long and honorable history of the First Church. For nearly two and a quarter centuries she had endured; growing as the city grew, developing as the life around her developed, re- tarded sometimes by the frailties of human leadership, yet standing always as a symbol of that which transcends hu- man history. She had known religious dissension and con- flict; she had experienced the bitterness of war; she had been the mother of churches of many denominations in all
THE REVEREND HERBERT DRAPER GALLAUDET
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parts of the city, and her influence had extended far be- yond her local boundaries. Now she was ready to turn the page of a new chapter, one that would record a new adven- ture, an adventure made possible by the faith, the courage, and the sacrifice of her pastor and her people.
For the Second Church, also, the period since the Civil War had been a period of growth and development. Mr. Lord was followed by the Reverend Edward Johnson, who served faithfully and effectively from 1870 to 1876. He was a man of scholarly attainments, with marked poetic ability. He was also a man of travel, having conducted a party through Europe and the Holy Land. For the church his ministry marked a time of recuperation and quiet progress.
Dr. R. G. S. McNeille, whose pastorate extended from 1877 to 1893, was a highly individual person, a man of keen wit, not averse to attracting attention by somewhat spectacular actions such as appearing in the pulpit in a full dress suit. He was popular with the young people and en- couraged activities among them. In 1885 the Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor was organized, the first society in Bridgeport and the second in the state, and it soon reached a membership of more than a hundred. Two years later a Christian Endeavor Society was organ- ized in the North Church. In 1877 women were allowed for the first time to vote on matters pertaining to the church. In 1880 the church celebrated its fiftieth anniver- sary with appropriate ceremonies.
Mr. McNeille had made a very real contribution to the life and thought of the church. Upon his resignation, the Committee on Resolutions wrote: "Various and impor- tant have been the changes in the thoughts and methods of Christian workers under the Congregational System dur- ing the last fifteen years. In this transition period Mr. Mc- Neille has displayed admirable qualities in meeting the
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demands and keeping himself and the church in the line of progress and abreast of the times. Distinguished for inde- pendence of thought, boldness of utterance, intellectual powers and rare gifts of oratory, he has preached the Gospel with great success and during his ministry the church has largely increased its membership so that now there are about 600 members."
Reverend Frank Russell came in 1895 and served for six years, resigning in 1901. Mr. Russell had previously been engaged in evangelistic work, and he received many new members into the church. He was also actively interested in the work of the city charities. An innovation at the be- ginning of his pastorate was the use of the individual com- munion cup instead of the common cup.
For a year the pulpit was supplied by the Reverend Wil- liam H. Sallmon. Mr. Sallmon was greatly liked and was urged to remain as permanent pastor; but it had long been his desire to enter educational work, and when an invita- tion was extended him to become president of Carleton College, in Northfield, Minnesota, he accepted. He was the first minister in the South Church to wear a gown, an inno- vation which was widely discussed. He is remembered as a remarkable Bible teacher, his class of men, meeting before church in the Y.M.C.A., reaching an enrollment of about four hundred.
The Reverend Henry Hallam Tweedy, one of the most beloved pastors of the Second Church, was born in Bing- hamton, New York, in 1868. He prepared for college at Phillips-Andover Academy and graduated from Yale in the class of 1891, a Phi Beta Kappa scholar, a member of Skull and Bones, and the recipient of many other college honors. For two years he taught physics and chemistry in the Hill School in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Union Theological Seminary, receiving from there a scholarship which enabled him to study for two years in
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Germany. He then became pastor of the Plymouth Con- gregational Church in Utica, New York. He married Miss Grace Landfield of Binghamton.
Dr. and Mrs. Tweedy came to Bridgeport in 1903, and the six years that followed were years of quiet, steady de- velopment in the spiritual life of the church. A modernist in theology, Dr. Tweedy was a preacher of distinction. His children's sermons were particularly effective. Popular, too, were the Sunday evening lectures in which he made frequent use of the stereopticon, observing that "the Eye Door into the brain is larger than the Ear Door," a truth which at that time was only beginning to be clearly recog- nized.
Mrs. Tweedy also was an active leader in the church, especially in the work of the women. Besides raising money and packing missionary barrels, the members of the Ladies' Benevolent Society were meeting many local needs. For example, they organized a sewing society for little girls, practical training of that nature not having been introduced as yet into the curriculum of the public schools. At Mrs. Tweedy's suggestion, an organization of the younger women of the church was formed, which was known as the Wednesday Workers. Mrs. C. Nathaniel Worthen, Mrs. William E. Seeley, Jr., and Mrs. Robert E. Seeley were among the promoters of this new society, and Mrs. Charles W. Hawley was the first president. The Wednesday Workers developed into a large and enthusias- tic organization which sponsored many projects, among them being an annual fair which, besides raising a large amount of money, was an important social event each year for the entire church.
In 1909 Mr. Tweedy was awarded an honorary degree of Master of Arts from Yale, and the same year he was invited to become Professor of Practical Theology in the Yale School of Divinity. He later received the degree of Doctor
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of Divinity from Middlebury College. It was with reluc- tance that he relinquished his work in Bridgeport, and with deep feeling that the church accepted his resignation. His farewell sermon was entitled "The Parting of the Ways" and was based upon the story of Ruth and Orpha. In it he stated his dilemma in the following words: "In the years that stretch before me shall I be a preacher or a teacher? Work as a pastor or as a trainer of pastors? The choice has been a hard one, because both ways were good and exceedingly pleasant." That he chose to be a trainer of pastors was a distinct loss to the church and to the city, but by the same token it was a gain to the Divinity School and to New Haven, where Dr. and Mrs. Tweedy have since made their home. He retired from the Divinity School in 1937, but has continued to preach frequently in churches, schools, and colleges.
In addition to his work as preacher and teacher, Dr. Tweedy has written many books and articles upon religion and religious training in the church, the school, and the home. An accomplished musician, he has also composed a number of hymns and he edited a hymnal of Christian Worship and Praise, which is widely used in schools and colleges as well as in churches. One of his hymns won the first prize in a contest sponsored by The Homiletic Re- view.
O gracious Father of mankind, Our spirits' unseen Friend, High heaven's Lord, our hearts' dear Guest, To Thee our prayers ascend. Thou dost not wait till human speech
Thy gifts divine implore; Our dreams, our aims, our work, our lives, Are prayers Thou lovest more.
The year following Dr. Tweedy's resignation Dr. Rich- ard LaRue Swain became pastor. The experiences of his
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early life formed a background that was particularly sig- nificant in view of the work of his later years. Dr. Swain's father had been brought up in his English home as a Ro- man Catholic, but in early manhood he had become a Prot- estant and a Wesleyan preacher. Migrating to this country, to the state of Iowa, he built a one-room log cabin, cleared the land and worked the farm, making a home for himself and his family. There his son Richard was born in 1860. Upon coming to this country, the father associated himself with the denomination known as the United Brethren; and he continued his preaching, traveling long distances on horseback through the sparsely settled and largely irre- ligious regions of the frontier. The mother and her chil- dren, often left alone for weeks at a time, found refuge from their loneliness and fear only in each other and in God. "Religion," Dr. Swain wrote in later years, "was as real to me as my parents, or the atmosphere I breathed, or the food I ate."
But while the boy was absorbing from his parents the strong, simple faith by which they lived, he was meeting in the world outside a very different concept of religion. In the thinking of the frontier, religion was something that must be acquired through a dramatic experience of con- version, usually in the ecstatic scenes of a revival meeting; but to the thoughtful, sensitive boy such scenes brought many conflicts and doubts. However, his townsmen de- cided that he had a "call" to preach, and without his own consent or even knowledge recommended him to the con- ference for a license. He considered long and seriously be- fore he consented to take the required examination and re- ceive the license to preach.
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