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ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 03582 5964
Go 974.202 C54t
Trinity Church Claremont, N. H
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TRIN CHUR Claremont, N. H.
A Contrary of
1813-1943
$
TRINITY CHURCH
CLAREMONT, N. H.
1843 - 1943
Allen County Public Library 900 Webster Street PO Box 2270 Fort Wayne, IN 46801-2270
7717 YNIN
Trinity Church before the Hurricane
A History of Trinity Church
FOREWORD
Pine trees, "cathedral" pine trees, rose on the plain like pillars, extending down the slopes that bordered their floor to the rushing river far below. If one could have followed the occasional Indian fisherman, or a questing hawk, the river would have lured one on and up for several miles to another steep slope where trees again invited one to climb to another table- land of forest life. God made the wind in their branches and the voices of the waters His organ, His Aeolian harp, and the wild bird choristers sang sweetly there, and the spicy, tangy fra- grances wafted in natural ascending prayer as His incense. The red man, alone in these wild places, sensed the Great Spirit, and the on-coming white man (come to stay and fell the trees) in his way, too, was moved to sense holy ground; for on these two plains were to arise two churches in which the people yet to come through the years would worship God, even as they had in that dear Mother-land of England across the stormy ocean.
Thus out of the silence of the primeval fastland began the Mother Church, at West Claremont, in the Royal Province of New Hampshire in the New England :- and thus, later, in the State of New Hampshire of our United States on the second plain, above turning mill wheels in the now harnessed river, grew the Daughter Church and passed to maturity. This ma- turity of years we are celebrating this fateful year of 1943 by lighting 100 candles, that we, too, may pass on the Light of the World.
On April 28th, 1769 a-Memorial was dated and sent from Claremont as follows :-
"To, the Reverend Clergy of the Church of England and Missionaries of ye Venerable Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in foreign parts to be convened at New Milford in the Colony of Connecticut on Trinity Week." It runs as fol- lows :-
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One Hundredth Anniversary
"The Memorial of us the Subscribers Conformists to the Church of England and Inhabitants of the Town of Claremont in the Province of New Hampshire in New England humbly sheweth That the first beginning of the Settlement of this Town by the Proprietors was about two years ago. And until since the Proclamation of the Peace last between Great Britain and France, this Land was a wild uncultivated Desert which no Christian ever saw except some light Scouts of the English in pursuit of blood-thirsty Savages or of the Wild Beasts of the Earth, we live very remote from all the Clergy of the Church of England and there is but one Church in this Province which is at Portsmouth, under the pastoral Care of the Reverend Mr. Browne who is about 140 miles distant from us. Five in- fants born here are yet unbaptised for no Missionary has yet give us a visit yet we maintain our principles of Conformity."
Much follows on the Right of Land granted for "Use of a School by Benning Wentworth our late Governor," the Glebe Right and the Right granted to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in foreign Parts-this Memorial requests that Samuel Cole, Esq., "be appointed Catechist and Schoolmaster among us." The Convention assembled at the Trinity sea- son forwarded it to London to the Society with, "respect to Samuel Cole, Esq .; we can likewise bear a good Testimony in his Favor in all such Particulars as the Society (our good Benefactors) require in a Person to be received to Their Service. This good old gentleman many years since, designed to make Application for holy Orders, but by a Series of unexpected Occurrences has been prevented. He was educated at Yale Col- lege-is now advanced in years, has always been esteemed a Gentleman of much Godliness, Honesty, and Sobriety; and in a word, we think (but with Submission) Mr. Cole might be with great Propriety and Usefulness employed at the aforementioned Place as Catechist and School Master." The Society in Lon- don agreed to so do "and that Inquiry be made, whether Mr. Badger does not occasionally visit these people." "We know from Mr. Cole's letter that he visited Claremont at least once prior to 1771" in his itinerant missionary travels in New Hamp- shire to settlers attached to the Church of England. Another
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Trinity Church, Claremont
picturesque and vividly imaginative gentleman, the Rev. Sam- uel Peters, likewise so journeyed and visited our ancestors but the Revolution drove him back to England. A letter from Mr. Cole dated December 26, 1770, to the London Society men- tioned, "There have been ten infants baptized in this town since we came here, five by the Rev. Mr. Badger and five by the Rev. Mr. Peters." Mr. Cole continues: "We assemble every Lord's day and I read such parts of the Common Prayer, the Lessons, etc., as are generally supposed may be done without infringing on the sacred function, and the church people constantly at- tend. We read Archbishop Sharp's and Bishop Sherlock's sermons.
"I am desired by the Wardens and the Vestry of the Church in Claremont," etc. "I would humbly beg of the venerable Board some Bibles, Common Prayer Books, Catechisms, etc." The Society sent him "Six Bibles, six New Testaments, twenty-five Prayer Books, and twenty-five Lewis Catechisms" for the benefit of the children in his school. In an earlier letter Mr. Cole had desired two or three dozen Psalters, "for they are not printed or used by the Dissenters, and therefore seldom to be had."
The Society sent to this incipient Church in the wilder- ness its first Rector, a gracious and cultivated man, the Rev. Ranna Cossitt born in Granby, Conn., educated by the So- ciety and ordained in London in December, 1772. The hu- man interest is strengthened by Mr. Cossitt being son-in-law of Samuel Cole who so faithfully had nourished the little flock formerly organized by the Rev. Peters in 1771, as he reported.
"The first parish of the Church of England in western New Hampshire was organized in Claremont in 1771. Its Church is the oldest still standing in the state. It was built in 1773, on 'the Plain' within the shadow of Twistback, a little south of Sugar River, and a little more than a mile from the Connecticut. The plans were sent from Portsmouth by that gracious Royal Governor, John Wentworth. It is designated on early maps as 'the English Church,'" so writes the historian, the late George B. Upham, Esq., in his introduction to "A Masque, Precursors of the Revolution" which, he wrote for the
ـرية : بايد
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Union Church, West Claremont, N. H.
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Trinity Church, Claremont
150th anniversary of the Parish, which was performed about the Church steps and in the locust grove thereby on July 27th, 1921, during the rectorship of the Rev. George Huntington, who impersonated in the tableau following, the Rev. James Howe .*
The Reverend Ranna Cossitt was ordained Priest Sun- day, March 7, 1773, in his Majesty's Chapel Royal at S. James' Palace in Westminster, by the Bishop of London. On the 28th day of June, 1773, Mr. Cossitt was collated into the Parish by Governor John Wentworth. Mr. Cossitt did missionary work up and down the Connecticut River. His name Ranna, is an anglicising of the French René as the Cossitts were French Huguenots who emigrated to England. Staunch in his loyalty to England, he was obliged to leave his parish and go to Cape Breton as the storm of the Revolution gathered. He died in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, 1815.
From 1785 to 1819 an interesting succession of priests of- ficiated at our Mother Church, Union, West Claremont. On April 13, 1819, the Rev. James Blake Howe, deacon, of Dor- chester, Mass., was called to Union Church and community. May ,7 1819, Bishop Griswold, who had ordained him Deacon, made him Priest at his See in Pawtucket, R. I. It appears from records kept by Mr. Howe that prior to his call to Union Church, he did some work in Claremont Village in the sum- mer and autumn of 1818.
On November 18, 1822, Bishop Griswold consecrated the already purchased Brick Meeting House built in 1814 by the Universalist, Baptist, and Methodist Societies which stood on the present site of Trinity Church (1943), naming it Trinity Chapel of Union Parish, a quaint, sixteen-sided, steep cupola-crowned edifice with two tiers of small-paned windows.
* The historical writings of the late George B. Upham, Esq., espe- cially "Pre-Revolutionary Life, and Thought in a New Hampshire Town," Granite Monthly, 1922, have been quoted, also facts supplied from re- search from Miss Anna Lewis, Charles B. Spofford and Major Otis F. R. Waite, author of the History of the Town of Claremont, N. H. (published 1895).
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THE RT. REV. CARLTON CHASE, D.D.
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Trinity Church, Claremont
The church was unheated, the people bringing their own foot stoves.
On August 26, 1843, a special meeting of the Parish was held in Union Church: resolved that Union Society was willing to relinquish all rights and claims and titles to Trinity Chapel, to a new Society in the Village as soon as said Society is legally formed. (Note the services of Mr. Howe were equally divided between the Church and Chapel during the greater part of his long and useful rectorship.)
A TRIBUTE TO THE REV. JAMES BLAKE HOWE
"The ministry of Mr. Howe in Claremont was more than ordinarily useful. Mr. Howe was a Christian gentleman. He regarded his position as parish priest one of high honor, and was always contented and cheerful in doing its important and delicate duties. He was truly a gentleman of the old School. Like Bishop Griswold he continued to wear, as long as he lived, the long stockings, and short clothes of the olden times. He was open, frank, hearty, courteous, sincere, true to his convic- tions of duty, earnest in his religious feelings. In short, he was a man to win the confidence and affection of his people. Until he left the parishes of Trinity and Union, no parish was more united or more cordially attached to its Rector." (From Dr. Isaac Hubbard's address at the 100th Anniversary of Union Church, West Claremont.)
On September 20, 1843, the Parish of Trinity Church was legally formed.
Between November, 1843, and Easter, 1844, the Rev. Eleazer A. Greenleaf officiated as supply at Trinity Church. December 30, 1843, the Rev. Carlton Chase, D.D., was called and he was "instituted" as rector April 14, 1844.
On October 20, 1844, the Rev. Carlton Chase, D.D., was consecrated Bishop of New Hampshire in Christ Church, Phil- adelphia, by the Right Reverend Philander Chase, D.D. While Bishop he was still Rector until June 1, 1863, making Trinity
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One Hundredth Anniversary
Church the first pro-cathedral and Claremont the See of the Diocese. He was connected with our Parish for nineteen years; his letter of resignation follows :-
June 1, 1863, Diocese of New Hampshire To the Wardens and Vestry of Trinity Parish:
Dear Brethren, Proceedings in the late Convention, by which the Diocese assures by full support, and solicits for itself my undivided cares and labors, make it my duty to resign the rectorship of your church. This I beg leave now to do. And in doing it, I assure you, Brethren, that my connection of 19 years with Trinity Church has af- forded me immeasurable occasions of happy and grateful remembrance. As your Bishop I shall be in your service, and shall be most happy at all times to do what I can for Trinity Church.
With much affection and respect, Yours, in most holy bonds,
CARLTON CHASE.
The brick church, having served its usefulness, was razed in the early part of 1852. The cornerstone of the present church was laid June 16, 1852, as follows: "I, Carlton Chase, D.D., Bishop of the Diocese of New Hampshire, in the 59th year of my age, and in the 80th year of the episcopate-Millard Fillmore being president of the United States, and Noah Mar- tin being Governor of New Hampshire-this 16th day of June in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty- two, lay this cornerstone of Trinity Church, and with my own hand make this deposit."
The architects of Trinity Church were Messrs. Wills and Dudley of New York City, the builders, Messrs. Washburn and Nichols of Albany, N. Y. The building committee was Messrs. Charles N. Bingham, Lewis Perry, Charles F. Long and Alvah Stevens. The Church edifice completed was a Gothic Church built entirely of wood.
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Trinity Church, Claremont
Bishop Chase died on the 18th day of January, 1870, at the age of 76. When Bishop Chase resigned as rector, the wardens and vestry called the Rev. John Milton Peck of Warren, R. I., to become rector, which began on August 2, 1863. Rev. J. M. Peck had been rector also of the Church at Rutland, Vt., and other parishes. He labored earnest- ly to continue the work be- gun in the village under Bishop Chase. The rector in his annual report of June, 1867, reported 12 baptisms, 20 confirmations, and 160 communicants. He left Trinity Church the same month, and died at Longwood, Mass., June 25, 1890.
THE REV. JOHN MILTON PECK 1863-1867
On the 1st of August, 1867, the Rev. Dr. Hubbard be- came rector. The Rev. Isaac George Hubbard, D.D., was born in Claremont, N. H., on April 13, 1818. He was the son of Isaac Hubbard, who was for many years warden of Union Church, West Claremont. He graduated from Trinity Col- lege in the year 1839, and passed from college into the Gen- eral Theological Seminary of New York City, where he spent two years, and was compelled by his limited means to finish the prescribed course of study with Bishop Carlton Chase of Claremont. He was ordained Deacon by Bishop Chase in Trin- ity Church, Claremont, June 25, 1845. He served his deacon- ate in Vergennes, Vt., and was ordained Priest by Bishop Chase in March, 1847. The first three years of his priesthood he was rector in Potsdam, N. Y. In May, 1852, he became rector of S. Michael's (now Grace Church), Manchester, N. H., where he remained until February, 1866. In August, 1867, he accepted
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One Hundredth Anniversary
the rectorship of Trinity Church, Claremont, where he re- mained until Easter, 1875. He died in 1879.
In 1871 the Parish sold its rectory for three thousand dol- lars and purchased the Dr. Robert Gleason house and grounds adjoining the church lot for four thousand five hundred dol- lars. In 1884 the old buildings on this lot were sold for about one hundred and fifty dollars, to be removed.
In September, 1866, Simeon, George G. and Lemuel N. Ide presented to Trinity Church a bell weighing 1,057 pounds, and costing, with mountings, etc., $531.62, "for religious and church uses only."
The following explains itself:
Claremont, New Hampshire December 19th, 1871
To the Rector, Wardens and Vestry of Trinity Church:
Gentlemen: I have had prepared a Memorial Tab- let in memory of the Right Reverend Carlton Chase, D.D., our late worthy Bishop and Rector, which I herewith offer for your acceptance, to be placed in the chancel of the Church.
Very truly your asso- ciate in the Vestry, GEORGE L. BALCOLM.
Dr. Hubbard was granted a vacation and went to Europe.
The Reverend C. R. Batchelder, Reverend Mr. Pearson, and others supplied until the Rev. Henry Fer- guson was called. The Rev. Henry Ferguson, Rector of
THE REV. ISAAC HUBBARD, D.D. 1867-1874
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Trinity Church, Claremont
Trinity Parish from March 3, 1878, to December, 1880, was born in Stamford, Con- necticut, in 1848, and was the son of John and Helen (Morewood) Ferguson. He received his A.B. Degree from Trinity College, 1868, and his M.A. in 1875 and LL.D. in 1900. He was mar- ried to Emma J. Gardner of Middletown, Conn., October 15, 1873. Made a deacon in 1872, priest in 1873. He was Rector of Christ Church, Exeter, N. H., from 1872- 1878. Professor of History and Political Science in Trin- ity College 1883-1906. Rec- tor of Saint Paul's School, Concord, N. H., from 1906- 1911. Died in Hartford, Conn., on March 30, 1917.
THE REV. HENRY FERGUSON, LL.D. 1878-1881
Dr. Ferguson, who graced our parish a few short years, was a churchman and educator of distinction and wide culti- vation.
The Rev. Charles Stuart Hale was born at Brandon, Ver- mont, on April 30, 1835. He was the son of Dr. Josiah W. and Maria Tracy Hale. On July 6, 1875, Dr. Hale married Mrs. Louise (Weed) Stevens, and later married Clara Farwell Blodgett on October 2, 1884. Their children were the Rev. Edward Stuart Hale (deceased), the Rev. Charles Stuart Hale, Jr., George Hale, and Mary Hale. Dr. Hale served as Rector from April 24, 1881, to May 31, 1885.
It was during this Rectorship that the present choir room was erected and dedicated.
In February, 1882, our present organ was placed in the Church. There was a chancel choir of men and boys, one of the earliest in New England.
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One Hundredth Anniversary
Dr. Hale had extensive knowledge of things ecclesiastical and historical pertaining to the Church of England and the American Church, as well as of Church architecture and music.
COMMUNICATION IN "THE CHURCH JOURNAL" 1886
MESSRS. EDITOR:
We read "The Church Journal" over here in Fairview, and often are interested exceedingly in the accounts of your cor- respondents concerning Confirmations, Conventions, and all sorts of pleasant services in their churches at home. You have not often heard from S. Dunstan's, Fairview. We have no wish to advertise our parish or its Rector. We will just bor- row names, but at the same time jot down sundry facts.
Fairview is in the little province of New England, but away back, so that when the wind is right, and the air clear, we can hear the distant railway whistle. The stage coach finds us quite easily, bringing the New York and Boston mail- bags, and a handful of ven- turesome travellers for the Eagle Hotel.
THE REV. CHARLES STUART HALE
The Merciful Father has given us a healthy atmos- phere, and a goodly portion of the beautiful scenery which adorns His footstool, and scarcely can you find greater numbers of hardy old men in the same population than in our quiet township. Aside from the rich and com- fortable farms that help to make our material wealth, we have a little of the spice of manufactures, but we do not go far in that line, and of
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Trinity Church, Claremont
course you know there must be here some of the rival sects which have left the Old Church and are trying to save souls, not in the way the Master and the blessed Apostles taught, and when one of S. Dunstan's people is laid to rest in the quiet church yard and the Rector just announces the name among the deaths in the Fairview Gazette, in the communion of the Catho- lic Church, you ought to see the scowl on the faces of our dis- senting brethren who say the worship at S. Dunstan's is all a mockery and its Rector an unconverted man. They know not how dear are those words of the "Visitation" prayer when said of the pious departed.
But there are two Churches that have a right to be so called in Fairview-old S. Anne's at the Riverside Farms, the old settlement, and the younger S. Dunstan's at the new vil- lage. The old parish, so my city cousin who called the other day from Philadelphia said to me, has "gone to sleep long ago." Well, you might ask "has a Church a right to go to sleep?" I'll not say anything now about a sort of millstone on the neck of old S. Anne's called "afraid," but then the old parish has done much good for the world, and its old members have at last nearly all died and the young gone away from that part of "Fairview," and the few that kneel in those great square pews and confess their sins of a Sunday morning with good Father Whitcomb, mean to keep the Old Church open and the sweet old bell swinging until the last shall have slept with his Fa- ther, and, dear Sirs, it is a holy place. We have felt the tears starting as we stood once in that huge gallery and looked down upon the vacant pews and the walls that might speak of so many that have gathered there, but now have departed, and thought of the holy service heard there, and in old S. Anne's it was that the old Bishop Weekheart of blessed memory first laid his hands in Confirmation upon my head after his Con- secration. But those that gathered there once, the young and the old, the faithful and the unfaithful, are lying now under those locusts you see ever in the church yard not to rise again till the last Advent of the Crucified.
If you climb the hill just back of S. Anne's and look down the valley the other side, you see where the new village has
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One Hundredth Anniversary
risen with the noble spire of S. Dunstan's shooting upward and bearing aloft the holy cross of our salvation. True we have no massive Gothic pile of solid stone and more's the pity, when good old honest granite lies right about us. But some of the last class of young masters and misses for Mr. Earnest, our Rector, believe that people ought to be presented to the Bishop when they are quite young, can well remember when the city architect came, our people having taken down the old brick octagon that had been called by several Christian names before the "Episcopals" bought it and put up our cozy and not inelegant timber church.
"Yes, 'tis the village joiners' work With but his axe and saws, "Tis what a rural parish could With what its farms supplied, Not what in mind and heart they would Had they the gold beside."
All that the Church requires it hath, Chancel, porch and nave, and I have often heard our Rector say that if the outside were plain, yet its inner completeness and beauty were worthy of many a city church, and few spires though it be of wood, rise more gracefully and nobly than ours. And then S. Dunstan's is well filled every Sunday morning notwithstanding how much Parson Winthrop has howled against us in the "Orthodox" meeting house on the other side of the Common, and begged his people not to attend our dear Christmas services, while every Eastertide brings in a goodly wave of new comers that want seats and are not to be frightened away by what the Methodist class leader told one of the young people who thought of attending Church about our worship's being just like the "Catholics." Don't you wonder that any one in our day can be so foolish as to call that medieval schism "Catholic" and would you believe it, Mr. Earnest can hardly get Mr. Pettigrew, the young vestryman, or the Hon. Mr. Thomas, our representa- tive, to say "Romish" when talking about "popery," and yet they will stand up in Church and repeat after him in good dic- tionary terms "I believe in the Holy Catholic Church." I think Mr. Earnest would agree with all your talk about having more
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Trinity Church, Claremont
Bishops for he calls for our Bishop to come and visit us about every six months, and has done so for years, always by God's grace being able to present him some who can say the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments, and he trusts are "sufficiently instructed beside," and our Bishop does come always most gladly and willingly and we look to see those ven- erable hands laid in Apostolic blessing upon our sons and daughters and to hear his fervent benediction. You ought to have been here last Christmas day. If you remember you were groping your way through a dismal fog and rain to church and our brethren in Phila in a drenching all day, while here in Fairview it was the most glorious sunshiny day, and the ground covered with the fairest snow drifts you can imagine, and didn't the people turn out? A Church full though it were a week-day! And it so happened that the Bishop, having given us a visitation the Sunday before, stayed over Christmastide with us, and he said, old Churchman as he is, he never spent so happy a Christmas, and that he said, too, before the evening service when the parish children surprised him with a gift of an Episcopal seal ring, heavy and rich, just after they had sung their carols in his presence and he had blessed them with quiv- ering lip when afterwards the Rector had asked them all to kneel before their Bishop around the prayer desk.
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