USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > Kensington > Two hundredth anniversary, Kensington Congregational Church : organized December 12, 1712. Kensington, Connecticut, June 29th, 30th, July 1st, 1912 > Part 6
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Emma Hart, a native of the Worthington parish, did not- able educational work in Kensington, teaching in her youth a winter school for which only a man had been considered quali- fied; and after she had attained fame through her work for the higher education of women, she returned to her native town and served as superintendent of the Kensington schools. Prof. D. N. Camp says: "At this time probably no town or parish in the State had better schools or a livelier interest in education."
Three women, like the devoted women who ministered unto the Master of their substance, have left legacies for the use of church or society: Miss Fanny Scoville, Miss Eliza Dickinson and Miss Frances Robbins. A legacy was also left to the soci- ety by Jonathan T. Hart, a great-great-grandson of Dea. Thomas Hart. These gifts afford welcome aid, without giving occasion for the living members to lessen their sense of re- sponsibility.
"These many years! What lessons they unfold
Of grace and guidance through the wilderness."
"The church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth," divine in source and aim, depends upon human per- sonalities, called unto a fellowship of saints, though not all sanctified. It is a high privilege to be entrusted with this heritage, to enter into the labors of others, to be fellow-workers in seeking the kingdom of God on earth, in hope of the kingdom of glory. Our desire and prayer, according to our faith con- cerning the centuries past, is that "Unto Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus, unto all generations."
THE MINISTERS OF THE KENSINGTON CHURCH
HONORABLE LIVINGSTON W. CLEAVELAND
Mr. Moderator, Members and Friends of the Kensington Church:
A New England traveler mistook the first mile stone out of Boston for a tomb stone. It read: "1 m. from Boston." He read it, "I'm from Boston," and reflected, "How simple, how sufficient."
I assume that I have been selected to assemble the facts, many of them oft times told, in reference to the ministers of the Kensington Church during the past two hundred years, not because any one supposed that I was especially qualified for the task, but simply because I'm from Kensington, the son of a former minister in Kensington. In this delightful atmos- phere, I had the privilege of spending perhaps the most inter- esting period of my youth.
An epitaph I have often read in a Lakewood cemetery on the grave of Jennie June's husband, said to have been placed there by Jennie June herself, appropriately describes my attempt to prepare this historical address:
"He meant well, Tried a little, Failed much."
A few years ago a symposium was held by the New Haven Congregational Club. The following topics were discussed by members of the Club: Can a man be a Christian and a suc- cessful lawyer? Can a man be a Christian and a successful business man? Can a man be a Christian and a successful editor? Can a man be a Christian and a successful teacher? Can a man be a Christian and a successful politician? Can a man be a Christian and a successful minister?
I will not attempt to explain why I declined to discuss the question assigned to me: Can a man be a Christian and a successful politician? Governor Baldwin, then Judge Bald-
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win, always equal to any emergency, made it very clear, at least to the members of the New Haven County Bar, that a man could be a Christian and a successful lawyer. I will not say that no New Haven clergyman could be found to discuss the proposition whether a man could be a Christian and a successful minister: I will only say that the subject was handled by a clergyman from North Haven, who ably and plausibly contended that it was possible to be a Christian and a success- ful minister at the same time.
It is for me to consider-in a long distance glance backward over the centuries-something of the lives of the ministers of a church whose continued successful existence, from a remote antiquity until the present hour, bears eloquent testimony to the character of its spiritual leaders.
The ministers of a New England parish! What pictures do the words bring to mind-pictures of men of strong, keen intellect, wrestling with the knotty problems of the old theology on the one hand, and on the other, grappling the prosaic difficulties of running farms; now elaborately conversing in Latin, and again, bartering pecks and bushels of grain for yards of homespun; sometimes urging their flocks to public improvements and to deeds of valor, while all the time wonder- ing how they should keep the wolf from the door.
In the early days of New England, the minister held the chief and foremost place among his people; and, in the quasi- hieratic government, he was regarded with the respect that had once been bestowed on the king, the pope, or the lord of the manor; unfortunately, without the revenues of those potentates.
After the first hardships had given way to comparative ease, the minister was still the leader of the community, and he and his family lived in the blaze that beats upon a throne, even if the throne were a pulpit. See the learned divine, arrayed in the spotless broadcloth so painfully preserved for long years of pulpit use, taking his dignified course through his parish, saluting a brother minister, if met by chance, in the sonorous Latin that he had learned in college, responding graciously to the greetings of his parishioners and inquiring about the pros- perity of their poultry, their cows, and their families, patting the awed children on the head; and if on Sunday, passing through the standing congregation to the pulpit, where the hour-glass was to measure the tide of eloquence, logical, persuasive, argu-
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mentative, or pathetic, which was the one intellectual treat of the community, to be discussed throughout the town for weeks. He baptized, married, buried, one generation after another, rejoiced and grieved with his people; who in turn, loved, feared, and venerated him, as one of their choicest possessions.
Blessings on the New England ministers! From early days till now, they have enforced the idea that the object of learning was to do good; they have held up the standard of right thinking and right acting to such purpose that the old- fashioned New England conscience has become a proverb.
Of the why and when of the establishment of Kensington Church, another has told you. It is for me to speak of the long line of those ministers who have preached in its pulpit.
From 1712 to the present day, there have been sixteen; the first four divided nearly a century and a half among them, each of the four passing his whole ministerial life in Kensington. Of these, nine received degrees from Yale College or its Divinity School, two from Harvard, two from Union Seminary, three from Hartford Theological Seminary, one from Columbia, one from Princeton, one from Amherst, one from Bowdoin and one from Colby.
The first minister of Kensington parish was the Rev. William Burnham, of Wethersfield. His father was William Burnham, his mother, Elizabeth Loomis, of the well-known Loomis family. Born about 1684, graduated from Harvard at the early age of eighteen, married at twenty, in charge of a parish at twenty-three, he could scarcely be called a laggard in beginning the serious business of life. Bringing to the new parish the enthusiasm of youth, he showed enterprise and ability throughout his life, and was a leader in the affairs of the village and state. He came to his people in 1707, the inhabitants of Great Swamp having in that year begun to avail themselves of the privilege granted by the town of Farm- ington and by the General Assembly to support a minister of their own.
Evidently, he was willing to begin in pioneer style; for although his new house consisted at first of only two rooms on the first floor those were not finished in 1709, and he accepted the promise that the upper story should be completed after the interval of more than a year. Several pieces of land were conveyed to him. The stipend of the young minister was not
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superabundant, fifty pounds a year at first. This was not paid in coin of the realm, but in wheat, Indian corn, or rye. Labor to the amount of five pounds per annum was also promised, as well as five pounds worth of fire-wood for his family. Pay- ment in such manner was usual in those times.
Some tokens of the small payments which were weari- somely collected by the minister may be seen in the rate bills for 1720:
S. d
"John Standley, by 1 bushel wheat 5 6
Isaac Hart, 1 and one half bu. corn, 3 9
Samuel Hart, 2 bu. wheat, 11
Samuel Hubbard, 3 and one half bu. wheat,
wanting 1 pt.
4 s. of Jonathan Scott's account, 17 9
Jacob Deming, one half bu. Corn & 172 pt. 1 212
Thos. Porter, 112 bu. corn, 3 s. his ac. 3
9 d. Thos. Hart's, 9"
His salary was increased from time to time until in 1749 it was fixed at £300.
At last, meeting-house and parsonage were sufficiently advanced to permit definite organization, and in October 1711, the Assembly granted liberty to "Farmington Village" (Ken- sington) to "gather a church and call a minister." On Decem- ber 10, 1712, Mr. Burnham was ordained to the ministry, being twenty-eight years old. Of the ten members of the church, the minister was one. The names of the seven pillars in- cluded not only that of Burnham, but other names of families that have taken root in the soil and have flourished mightily: Hart, Judd, Seymour, North, Cowles, and Lee.
Mr. Burnham evidently made an impression on his world, for in the records of the time, his name appears as scribe, moder- ator and preacher at church councils and on other public occasions.
In 1722, his parish was named Kensington, and on May 10 of that year, he was asked to preach the election sermon in Hartford, "God's Providence in placing men in their respective stations and conditions," for which the thanks of the Assembly were voted, and it was published by order of the same body.
We infer that his two wives, Hannah Wolcott of Wethers- field, and the Widow Buckingham of Hartford, were prudent
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and thrifty women; for by the magic of work and economy, the pieces of fertile Kensington land that had been given to him were made to yield sufficient revenue for a comfortable support, and for gradually amassing a substantial property. He was blessed with a family of nine children. The house which was built for him was standing in recent years, a colonial building, browned by time, but moved from its original site. Mr. Burnham became a rich man for his day.
Whether his life were simple or strenuous, it wore on Mr. Burnham, so that in his early sixties, if not long before, his "bodily infirmity", made his people anxious to the point of petitioning the Assembly for an assistant preacher. Rev. David Judson from Stratford occupied the pulpit for a time and then the Rev. Edward Dorr, of the Lyme family, and the uncle of Edward Dorr Griffin, was here from 1744 to 1746. At the end of that time, Mr. Burnham's health was so far restored that he resumed his duties, and Mr. Dorr went to a long and distinguished pastorate in the First Church in Hartford. He was a man of ability. He suffered from paralysis and died at the early age of fifty, not before, however, he had raised his voice in appeal for missionary work among the Indians, taking great interest in Rev. Mr. Wheelock and his Indian school at Lebanon. By him were uttered these words, "Scarce ever a word is put up in our worshipping assemblies-but one petition is to this purpose-That Almighty God would open a door for sending the Gospel to the heathen." He was a pioneer in missionary effort.
During Mr. Burnham's day, there were warm discussions as to the order of procedure in seating the congregation, and as to the respective merits of singing hymns and psalms by line or by rule. From all these questions, he was called away, September 23, 1750, at the age of 66. His will, dated July 1748, accepted by the Probate Court the first Tuesday in April 1759, but never recorded, divides his real estate among his three sons, William, Josiah and Appleton, and names his four daughters, Hannah, wife of Rev. Jeremiah Curtis, of Southing- ton, Lucy, wife of Jacob Root, of Hebron, Abigail, wife of Lieut. Robert Wells of Newington, and Mary, wife of John Judd, of Farmington. He disposes of "Servants, household stuff, money, plate, books, horned cattle, horses, sheep, swine, team tackling, and any instruments of husbandry whatsoever, corn upon the ground or gathered, linen, wearing clothes of
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any sort, horse tackling, any other tools or instruments besides those of husbandry, and all my moveable and personal estate whatsoever, excepting that concerning my Spanish Indian woman, Maria, my will is that after my decease she shall have liberty to dwell with any of my children, where she likes best and if at any time, she should not be able to earn a living, that she be comfortably provided for in sickness and during life at the cost of all my children & such as represent them, & concerning my Mulatto Boy James, my will is that, according to my deceased wife's desire, my daughter Abigail may have liberty to take him at the price he shall be valued at."
This shows, that in those days, a very good man might regard slavery as a matter of course, yet his Christian spirit of kindness predominated.
His family shared his ability; his brother Nathaniel had hastened to avail himself of the infant college, Yale, being graduated in 1709, and he and another brother, Jonathan, became surveyors for the colony, Nathaniel marking, in 1714, the line between Connecticut and Massachusetts. Rev. Mr. Burnham's son, William, was captain of the militia and deputy from Farmington. He died twenty months before his father. The oldest daughter, Hannah, married the Rev. Jeremiah Cur- tis, Yale 1724, who was the first settled minister of Southington. The great-nephew, Captain John Burnham, was a captive in the war of the Revolution, and in 1793, at Algiers. Stuart painted portraits of him and his wife Barbara, that are in the possession of Pay-Inspector Thomas T. Caswell, U. S. N. Two descendants, Hiram and Edwin H. Burnham, were in battles of the Civil War. Among his descendants are George Dudley Seymour, Esq., whose message you have heard at the Christian Lane Cemetery; and many of the Norths, Stanleys and Churchills of New Britain.
It was fortunate for Kensington that its first minister was so able to bring his parish into an honorable position. He was considered a sound preacher, and was accustomed to refer much to the Scriptures in support of his doctrines.
Mr. Burnham was not disposed to accept injustice tamely and it may be guessed that had he been at the helm instead of his successor, at the outbreak of the Revolution, he would have been among the torch-bearers of the colony. We know that he was the scribe of the General Association which on May 8, 1735, discussed the "value of paper money" being "such as to
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make the settled support of some of the ministers very much below the just intent of the sums agreed on;" and perhaps it was on account of family conversations thereon that his son Josiah, after his death, sued for loss of money; petitioning the Assembly that the nominal and buying value of paper money were so different as to amount to a loss of 4,000 pounds during his father's pastorate. Probably this large sum frightened the Assembly; for, unjustly, it seems, the petitioner was told that. the nominal value must be accepted.
An interregnum followed; and during that time, among others, no less a person than Ezra Stiles, afterwards president of Yale College, preached, and declined an invitation to be pastor. Similarly complimented was Elizur Goodrich, who later tied the vote with Stiles for the college presidency, and gracefully yielded to his rival.
Between Stiles and Goodrich, the Rev. Aaron Brown, and the Rev. Samuel Sherwood, (a cousin of Aaron Burr), supplied the pulpit.
Aaron Brown might have been shocked had he foreseen that one of his chief claims to attention now would be his connection with one of the first American novels. He supplied the pulpit in Kensington in 1755; then, after preaching in Granby, he was settled in Killingly, or East Putnam. There he married the widow of his predecessor, the Rev. Perley Howe. His step-son, the Rev. Joseph Howe, Yale 1765, a very able and promising young preacher, settled in the New South Church on Church Green in Boston, was to marry Eliza, the daughter of the Rev. Elnathan Whitman of Hartford, when the sudden death of the expectant bridegroom ended all. His step-father, Mr. Brown, returning from the funeral in Boston, himself died suddenly in Ashford. This sad story, with the Rev. Joseph Howe and his fiancée, Elizabeth Whitman, appeared as important parts of "The Coquette, or the History of Eliza Wharton, by a Lady of Massachusetts, Boston, 1797;" also, in the "Romance of the Association, or One Last Glimpse of Charlotte Temple and Eliza Wharton." It is to be noted that "after Mr. Howe's death, Eliza was sent to New Haven for gaiety and diversion."
On July 14, 1756, the Rev. Samuel Clark was settled here. His birthplace was Newton, Sussex Co., New Jersey, and he was graduated from Princeton, then the College of New Jersey, in 1751, receiving another degree from that college later and
1
REV. ALFRED T. WATERMAN
REV. JAMES B. CLEAVELAND
HON. LIVINGSTON W. CLEAVELAND
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also an honorary M. A. from Yale in 1757. His ability as a preacher caused the people to send some one to Elizabethtown, New Jersey, to deliver their invitation. He was evidently a man of systematic habits, for, two days after his settlement, we find him trying to bring order out of the chaos of the church records, which he says, "were very imperfect and broken." Not married, we read that he made provision for the enter- tainment of the Council, in his first year, once at the house of Doctor Wells, and again, at his lodgings, Lieut. Lankton's.
For ten years he had the comforts and discomforts of a bachelor minister, and we have all heard what that is! He yielded at last to the charms of no fair parishioner, but married a wife from Bolton, Jerusha White, July 1, 1766. He had two children, Samuel and Jerusha; yet his line has long disappeared, the only trace being Jerusha Clark, wife of Elisha Dunham, on the roll of the Worthington Church; but his house, still stand- ing, a model of colonial elegance, with its wide hall through the middle and its spacious stairways, shows that he was a man of means, not dependent on pints and quarts of corn for his support. The bricks and hardware were imported from England, and it is said to have "outranked in size and cost most country houses of the period." It was built in 1759.
There were thorns in the pastor's path among roses, in spite of the grand house; although it is difficult to see why he was so frequently involved in controversy. The long distances and poor roads made the location of the church a subject of bitter discussion, which led to the division of the parish. The choice between Worthington and Kensington was given to him, the Kensington people offering him, December 8, 1772, a salary augmented to 100 pounds. Perhaps his English importa- tions were stones of stumbling to those who were throbbing with Revolutionary spirit; for his opponents complained among other things of his "entering into a covenant and combination of trade and commerce in European goods and others, by a co-partnership with Jonathan Hart, on or about the 1st day of August, 1771;" and that he had broken his promise "not to take up, act, or join in with a part of said Society or Church against ye other or rest part of ye said Church, .... thereby raising and fomenting strife, debate, animosities, confusion, and every evil work."
On the other hand, eighty memorialists, asking to be made a distinct Society, speak of him as having "faithfully labored
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with them in word and doctrine about twelve years, to the unspeakable satisfaction of many .... whereby he has become most dear and is accounted worthy of double honor." He accepted the Kensington invitation, but he was high-spirited, and made this proviso :- "I do not desire the money of those who do not desire my labors," adding that he desired no man to be "tyed to me by the mere force of civil law who is unwilling himself to be under such wise and good civil regulations while we are blest with such good civil rulers in this land." This last probably had a Tory sound in those days. He was accused of giving ambiguous replies, the strife waxed hotter, a council for dismission was proposed, when most dramatically, death hushed the dispute, calling away Mr. Clark, November 6, 1775. The clamor of anger died away, leaving its echoes only in musty church records.
He was the first to be laid in the new East Burying-ground, his grave-stone bearing this inscription: "The first interment in this ground now consecrated to the dead." Alas! The legal notices in the newspapers proclaimed him to be insolvent. The salary was voted to the widow for "such time as the pulpit can be supplied by free-will offering." This was all the life insurance that the brotherhood of ministers could offer to bereaved families.
But peace did not come at once. The aforesaid Jonathan Heart, Yale 1768, of whom Mr. Clark was the silent partner, was a prominent man in the affairs of the town, and had been in trade there, besides teaching in New Jersey. His business ventures had not been successful, he had become insolvent, and had appealed to the Legislature to relieve him from im- prisonment for that insolvency. At the time of Mr. Clark's death, he was an adjutant in the Continental Line, and was afterwards at the siege of Yorktown, and became a member of the Cincinnati. Mrs. Clark assented that Mr. Clark had lost much through Captain Heart, denying the partnership which he asserted, and she sued him for about 800 pounds.
What headlines and what pictures would have adorned the modern reporter's account of this episode in church history, I leave you to imagine. Long after, April 26, 1787, Mrs. Clark married Amos Hosford, a deacon in the Worthington Church. The Clark house is now occupied by Mr. and Miss Warren, descended from Gustavus Upson, who was a grand-nephew of Dr. Benoni Upson.
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In the anxious years from 1775 to 1779, when the colonies were making their desperate struggle for independence, there was no minister in Kensington, for what reason is not definitely known. Perhaps the men who could have supported a min- ister were away, supporting the Continental Congress.
During that time, in 1777-8, no less a person than the elder Timothy Dwight had preached here several times, while he was studying with his uncle, Jonathan Edwards. The parish showed its discrimination by asking him to settle here. This he did not do. As is well-known, Dr. Dwight became one of the most prominent men of his time, and besides his notable work as president of Yale College, he wrote books of travel and poetry. In his Paraphrase of the Psalms of David is that of the 137th,
"I love Thy kingdom, Lord, The house of Thine abode,"
which according to Professor Dexter, has found favor in all Protestant denominations and is to be seen in every extant collection of hymns. It is inscribed on the wall of Dwight Hall on the Yale Campus.
In 1778, the prospect must have brightened in Kensington, if not in Congress, for there was discussion as to calling the Rev. Benoni Upson; and in 1779, he was ordained for the minis- try here, which ended only with his life.
Either the long deprivation, or the outlet for pugnacious feelings in actual war, calmed the angry disputes of Mr. Clark's time; and the peace-loving disposition of Dr. Upson spread over the parish. How beautiful a tribute it is that through life he was called a peace-maker.
His profession was in his blood; for Thomas Upson, his father, who lived in that part of Farmington now called Wol- cott, had married Hannah Hopkins, of the noted Hopkins family. She was one of the seven children of Captain Timothy Hopkins of Waterbury. One brother of Hannah was the Rev. Samuel Hopkins, D. D., of Yale 1741, settled at Newport, R. I., the founder of Hopkinsian theology. Another brother was the Rev. Daniel Hopkins, D. D., Yale 1758, pastor of the Third or South Congregational Church at Salem, member of the Pro- vincial Congress of Massachusetts. Another was Col. or Major Mark Hopkins, Yale 1756, who died of illness at White Plains just before the battle there in 1776. A paternal uncle
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of Hannah was the Rev. Samuel Hopkins, of West Springfield, Mass., who had married a sister of Jonathan Edwards. The great-grandfather of Benoni Upson, was a proprietor and origi- nal settler of Hartford in 1638 and Farmington in 1640.
As a boy, Benoni Upson was delicate, but after a residence of some years with his uncle in Newport, he became strong enough to enter Yale, and was graduated in 1776. Like Mr. Burnham, he was only 23 when he was ordained in Kensington, April 26, 1779.
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