USA > New York > Westchester County > Bedford > History of Bedford Church : discourse delivered at the celebration of the two hundredth anniversary of the founding of the Presbyterian Church of Bedford, Westchester Co., New York, March 22d, 1881 > Part 1
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9
1800
Glass BX9211
Book
B&B3
HISTORY
OF
BEDFORD CHURCH
Discourse
DELIVERED AT THE CELEBRATION OF THE TWO HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FOUNDING OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF BEDFORD WESTCHESTER CO., NEW YORK MARCH 22D, 1881
BY CHARLES W. BAIRD, D.D.
WITH AN ACCOUNT OF THE PROCEEDINGS ON THAT OCCASION
.
NEW YORK DODD, MEAD & COMPANY I882
BX9211 B3B3
COPYRIGHT, 1881, BY CHARLES W. BAIRD.
342406 25
C
THE Presbyterian Church of Bedford is the old- est of the churches under the care of the Presby- tery of Westchester (Synod of New York). In anticipation of the two hundredth anniversary of its foundation, the Session of the church invited the Rev. Charles W. Baird, D.D., historian of the Presbytery, to deliver a historical discourse upon that occasion. The Presbytery approved the appointment, and resolved to meet in Bedford at the time of the celebration. The discourse, considerably enlarged, together with an account of the other proceedings, is now published-by order of the church Session-at the request of the congregation and of many others who participated in the bi-centenary celebration.
JAMES H. HOYT, Pastor.
JOHN G. CLARK,
ST. JOHN OWEN,
DANIEL B. FINCH, Elders.
DAVID TRAVIS,
JAMES H. TROWBRIDGE, ALBERT WILLIAMSON,
BEDFORD, WESTCHESTER COUNTY, N. Y.,
December Ist, 1881.
-
CONTENTS.
PAGE
DISCOURSE.
7
LIST OF THE MINISTERS OF BEDFORD CHURCH
I02
LIST OF RULING ELDERS OF BEDFORD CHURCH
103
PROCEEDINGS AT THE BI-CENTENARY CELEBRATION.
105
INDEX
I35
DISCOURSE.
THERE is a singular fascination about those employments of the mind in which we seek to recall and to reconstruct the past ; whether by the play of the imagination, the effort of memory, or the wider sweep and severer exercise of thought in gathering and comparing testimony concerning past events. The charm is one that many feel most powerfully, and yield to most readily, when imagination leads the way, and the wand of the poet or the novelist evokes the semblance of things that have been. It is a charm acknowl- edged by others, to whom verse and story have little attraction, yet whose sober thoughts recur, with an interest that grows stronger as the years go by, to the days of their youth, and to the olden times of which they have heard with their ears, of which their fathers have told them. But unques- tionably the chief satisfaction of the mind in deal- ing with the past is found in those labours, and in the fruits of those labours, by which the facts of the past are ascertained, and its lessons are brought to view. Difficult, often baffling, often disappoint-
8
HISTORY OF BEDFORD CHURCH.
ing, this study is one of which we never weary, and which never utterly fails to reward us. To tempt us on, as by means of the slender records that remain, and the faint traditions that have come down, we seek to live over the past and to reproduce it for others-to tempt us, and to help us on, there are the immutable things of nature ; the scenery of the drama of human life that has been acted beneath these arching skies ; the hills, the streams, the fields, the paths that were traced through the wilderness in the early settlement, and that have been trodden these two hundred years ; the sites, if not the very dwellings, where the fathers lived. " One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh, but the earth abideth forever." Man himself, through these succeeding generations, has remained greatly the same. The joys and the troubles, the loves and the animosi- ties, the toils and the sufferings, that break up this little life of ours, have been known from age to age. And in so far as the times and the men have changed, the change has been significant of prog- ress. Humanity has been keeping step with the march of the centuries. If life, in some of its aspects, is an unvarying round of occurrences- " that which was is that which shall be, and there is nothing new under the sun "-in another and a nobler aspect, life is an onward movement, an unfolding of a plan of God. This thought, above all other thoughts, is engaging and helpful to the student of history. It is, I am sure, the impres-
9
HISTORY OF BEDFORD CHURCH.
sion under which we meet here to-day to celebrate the completion of two centuries in the history of this town and of this church. Here, in the quiet country, as in the great world beyond, the steady working out of a divine plan has taken place, the vigil of an unslumbering Providence has been kept, the kingdom of God has been advancing.
Let us go back then, two hundred years, to the twenty-second day of March, in the year of our Lord sixteen hundred and eighty-one. It is a strange and an eventful time. Charles the Second is on the throne of England. A reign marked by disasters and disgraces, and stained by every kind of vice and meanness, is approaching its end. Yesterday the king summoned his last parliament, which he will dissolve within a week, to reign after that without a parliament until his death, four years hence. Meanwhile, in the struggle that is going on for civil and religious freedom, it is the cause of despotism that seems to be everywhere in the ascendant. The Nonconformists of England, and the Presbyterians of the North, are suffering restraint or persecution. Richard Baxter is preach- ing by stealth in the neighbourhood of London ; and in that Bedford from which our town is to take its name, and in whose jail, ten years ago, he wrote " The Pilgrim's Progress," John Bunyan is allowed to pursue his lowly ministry. But in the moors and mountain fastnesses of Scotland, the Covenanters are hiding from the troops of Claver- house, or expiating the crime of fidelity to Christ,
I681. 21 March.
IO
HISTORY OF BEDFORD CHURCH.
by the penalty of torture and of death. Thousands of Scottish Presbyterians are this moment planning to fly their country and emigrate to America. In France, Louis the Fourteenth, now at the summit of his power, " the arbiter of Europe," is listening to secret proposals from the English King, and promising help in the effort to crush out the liber- ties of his subjects; while at the same time giving orders, this very month, to try the experiment of the " dragonnades " on the inoffensive Huguenots in his own realm. It is a dark and dreary day in the history of the nations.
On this side of the ocean, English colonists are breathing a purer and a freer air : but they are still few, and weak, and poor. Sixty years have elapsed since the landing of the Mayflower ; fifty years since the arrival of Winthrop's company at Salem, and the planting of the colony of Massachusetts Bay. Two generations of hardy, resolute men have lived through the stern New England winters, and urged their progress into the wilderness. At present, Plymouth and Massachusetts are slowly recovering from the impoverishment produced by Philip's war. Connecticut alone, of all the New England colonies, is quiet and in a measure pros- perous. "A community of farmers," with little trade, and small increase from immigration, there is general comfort, and scarcely any poverty within its borders. There are but few servants and fewer slaves. The population is homogeneous. " So few English, Scotch, or Irish come in, that we can give
1620. II November.
1630. 12 June.
II
1681.
HISTORY OF BEDFORD CHURCH.
no account of them."* The country is peopling with a sturdy and frugal race, who, left greatly to govern themselves, are working out in their town organizations, and in their political assemblies, a system that anticipates and prepares the way for the free institutions of a coming age. They are a people who prize learning. Every town is required by law to support a school, and nearly all the chil- dren in the colony attend the schools. They are a religious people. Of the outward forms of religion, none could be more rigidly observant. The Sab- bath is kept, public worship is frequented, the Christian ministry + is honoured, the Bible is read, immorality and false doctrine are denounced uni- versally. And while doubtless there are some for whom religion consists only in these outward forms, there are many more, we have good reason to be- lieve, who are leading quiet and peaceable lives, in all godliness and honesty, in the land where they have sought freedom to worship God.
We are in Connecticut. The boundary line be- tween this colony and the province of New York, has not yet been ascertained, and will not be for these two years. Just now, it is supposed to run
* Report of the Governor to the Lords of Trade, 15 July, 1680. Public Records of Connecticut, Vol. III., p. 298.
+ " They have . .. a scholar to their minister in every town or village." Transactions of the Commissioners in New England, 1665. Paper relating to the colony of Connecticut. Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, 1661-1668, preserved in Her Majes- ty's Public Record Office, page 341.
12
HISTORY OF BEDFORD CHURCH.
1640 I July.
somewhere to the west of this spot, nearer the Hudson river. We are in Stamford. The terri- tory of the town of Stamford, as purchased from the Indians, stretches northward from the sea-coast about sixteen miles, and includes the south-eastern quarter of the future town of Bedford. As yet, however, no inland settlement has been effected. Like Asher of old, the people "continue on the sea-shore, and abide in their creeks." From the Housatonic to the Hudson, the whole interior is a wilderness. East of the Housatonic even, and as far as the Connecticut valley, there are but two in- land plantations .* With the exception of these two, the twenty-six towns of the colony lie scat- tered along the Connecticut river and the Sound.
It was not long after the arrival of Winthrop's company at Salem, in 1630, that some of the Mas- sachusetts colonists, in search of a more fertile region, found their way to the Connecticut river, and established themselves at Hartford, Windsor, and Wethersfield. The settlement of Wethersfield was made by certain immigrants who had first sat down at Watertown, near Boston. They soon fell into disputes and contentions among themselves. At the end of five years the contending parties agreed to separate. A number of families, with their minister, the Reverend Richard Denton, left Wethersfield, and came down to the southern shore of Connecticut, where several plantations
* Woodbury and Waterbury.
13
HISTORY OF BEDFORD CHURCH.
had lately been commenced at Milford, Stratford, Fairfield, and Greenwich. Here they founded the town of Stamford .*
This was forty years ago. And now a band of Stamford men, twenty-four in number,t have made
* Called at first Rippowam, or the Wethersfield Men's Plantation. -History of Stamford, Conn., by the Rev. E. B. Huntington, p. 17. - History of the Town of Greenwich, Conn., by D. M. Mead, p.27. { Namely :- Richard Ambler, Abraham Ambler, Joseph Theale, Daniel Weed, Eleazar Slawson, John Wescot, Jonathan Pettit, John Cross, John Miller, Nicholas Webster, Richard Ayres, Jonas Seely, Joseph Stevens, Daniel Jones, Thomas Pennoyer, John Holmes, Benjamin Stevens, John Green, senior, David Water- bury, Samuel Weed, Jonathan Kilborn, John Bates, Nathaniel Cross, William Clark. Richard Ambler lived until 1699. Abraham, his only surviving son, was born 22 Sept., 1642; married Mary Bates, 25 Dec., 1662. Joseph Theale, son of Nicholas, of Water- town, was born 24 Oct., 1640. Daniel and Samuel Weed were sons of Jonas, of Watertown. Eleazar Slawson was the son of George, of Lynn, in 1637. John Wescot, son of Richard, of Wethersfield. John (son-in-law of Robert Bates), and Nathaniel Cross, brothers, were of Windsor. John Miller, son of John, of Wethersfield. Nicholas Webster, of Stamford, had married Sarah, dau. of John Waterbury. Richard Ayres was of Stamford. Jonas Seely, son of Obadiah, and grandson of Robert, of Watertown in 1630. Joseph and Benjamin Stevens, sons of Thomas, of Stam- ford. Daniel Jones, son of Cornelius, of Stamford. Thomas Pennoyer, born in 1658, son of Robert, of Stamford. John Holmes, born in Beverly, Yorkshire, Eng., died in 1729, aged ninety. John Green was of Stamford, in 1657. David Waterbury, son or grandson of John, of Waterbury. Jonathan Kilborn, probably of Wethersfield. John Bates, son of Robert, of Wethersfield. William Clark, probably a son of Samuel, of Wethersfield, one of the earliest settlers of Stamford. (Huntington, History of Stam- ford. Savage, Geneal. Dictionary, passim. List. of the names of the persons within the district of the town of Bedford, 5 Sept., 1698. MSS. in office of Secretary of State, Albany, N. Y.)
1641. May.
14
HISTORY OF BEDFORD CHURCH.
their way to this spot in the remote northern limits of their town. They have followed, we may suppose, the Indian path leading up from the shore to this inland clearing, and so have reached " the bend of the Mahanas River," where they propose to build their homes. The Town Spot, for which they have obtained a grant from Stam- ford, is a tract of land nine square miles in extent. It will be known in future as The First Purchase, or Bedford Three Miles Square .* At present, it is known as The Hop Ground.
Large portions of this tract have been under cultivation by the Indians. It was here +-so the tradition runs-that the savages whom Underhill surprised in the year 1644, ¿ raised their crops of corn. Yonder, on the south side of the hill known as Indian Farm, stood their village, with its three rows of huts, sheltered from the northwest wind. The level lands along the bend of the Mahanas, stretching northward toward Aspetong, invite the
* " After the Town had got a grant for 6 miles, they proposed to purchase from the Indians a Town Spot of 3 miles Square. The Old Purchase was generally called the three Mile Square. They had a place called the 3 miles round about, which lay near the head of Mehanas. The main of the Settlements were where the river runs east. Cortlandts line came to the south- ward of the northwest corner of the old purchase of Bedford." (Testimony in suit for-ejectment, Anderson vs. Rushton, 16 April, 1733 .- Jay Papers, MSS.)
+ History of the County of Westchester, N. Y., by Robert Bolton, vol. I., p. 7. (Revised edition.)
# History of New Netherland, by E. B. O'Callaghan, M.D. Vol. I., pp. 300, 301.
168I. March.
15
HISTORY OF BEDFORD CHURCH.
settlers' choice, and promise abundant room for their meadows and plantations. Here then they will lay out their "house lots " and " field lots," reserving a central space for the village green or common. And here, fronting on the common, at the foot of the rock or crag to be known hence- forth as Bates' hill, the Puritan Meeting-house shall be erected.
Not content with a grant of this tract from the town of Stamford, within whose bounds it lies, our settlers, in accordance with the honest usage of Connecticut, have purchased the land from its Indian claimants. The bargain with the "heathen " was sealed at Stamford, last December; the price paid being thirty-eight pounds and fifteen shil- lings .* Before the closing of the contract, John Cross, one of the purchasers, went up with the Indians to inspect the land.+ His name will be associated hereafter with the stream at the north- eastern angle of the Hop Ground, called by the Indians Peppeneghek, and by the white men Cross River .¿
Our settlers, nearly all, are the sons of English Puritans, founders of the colony of Massachusetts Bay. We recognize the names of Wescot, Miller,
* The Record Book of ye Proprietors of Bedford : anno 1683.
+ "John Cross was sent with the Indians." (Testimony in suit for ejectment.)
¿ The same name was also given to a tract of land in the north- ern part of the town, known as Cross's Vineyard, now included in the Jay estate.
1680. 23 December.
16
HISTORY OF BEDFORD CHURCH.
1681.
Kilborn, Clark, and Bates, as names of " Wethers- field men." John and Nathaniel Cross are the sons of a Windsor settler. Other names, as Theale, Weed, and Seely, are to be traced back to the earlier settlement at Watertown. In only one case can we refer to the place where the settler's family originated in England. John Holmes is a native of Beverly, Yorkshire, and came to this country some twenty years ago, when just of age .*
The little company has its leader and patriarch in Richard Ambler, now seventy years old, a repre- sentative of the first generation of New England men. He was of Watertown as early as the year 1637. His only son, Abraham Ambler, accom- panies the expedition, of which, indeed, he is one of the most influential members. The men thus associated are not only from the same town, and the same religious society, but there are ties also of kinship and intermarriage uniting them. Daniel and Samuel Weed are brothers. So are John and Nathaniel Cross, and Joseph and Benjamin Stevens. John Miller and Jonas Seely are half-brothers ; while Abraham Ambler and John Bates, John Cross and John Bates, Nicholas Webster and David Waterbury are brothers-in-law. It will cer-
* The family represented among the first settlers of Bedford by John Holmes, senior, and John Holmes, junior, appears to have been entirely distinct from the family of the same name among the early settlers of Stamford. John Holmes, senior, is said to have come from England to New York. He first settled in Greenwich, and thence removed to Bedford. (Mead's Hist. of Greenwich, Conn., p. 313.)
I7
HISTORY OF BEDFORD CHURCH.
tainly be strange, if, sustaining these relations, our settlers shall fail to make it appear how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell to- gether in unity.
Before the end of the first year, the proprietors had admitted three additional members * to their body, making the entire number twenty-seven ; and they had also agreed " to receive eleven inhab- itants into the Hop Ground in order to the settle- ment of a town." + Under the laws of Connecticut it was necessary that a plantation should consist of a sufficient body of freeholders, in order to be dig- nified by the name and be admitted to the rights of a town. It was not until this had been accom- plished, that Bedford obtained its present designa- tion. The General Court at Hartford now granted the petition of " the people of the Hop Ground," giving them the " privilege of a plantation," and ordering " that the name be henceforth called Bed- ford." ±
* Cornelius Seely, brother of Jonas ; John Miller, junior (per- haps " the good and pious Deacon Miller " mentioned further on); and John Slawson, brother of Eleazar.
+ The persons so received were Thos. Wyat, Samuel Burrett, Zachariah Roberts, Joshua Webb, Wm. Sturdevant, Stephen Clason, Thos. Canfield, Theoph. Balden, Thos. Wilman, Joseph Green, Daniel Simkins.
# May 16, 1682 .- Vpon the petition of the people of Hop Ground, This Court doth grant them the priviledg of a plantation, and doe order that the name of the towne be hencefort called Bed- ford. And this Court doe appoynt Joseph Theale to be the present cheife military officer for the Train Band of sayd Bedford ; and Abram Ambler is impowered by this Court to grant warrants, to
I682. 16 May.
18
HISTORY OF BEDFORD CHURCH.
1658.
Why the former name should have been adopted, and why the latter should now be conferred, we do not know. The one, " The Hop Ground," may have been suggested by the profusion of the plant referred to, growing wild, as we learn, in this region at the time of the settlement .* The other, Bedford, was given, most probably, by the General Court, in accordance with a principle adopted many years before, " intending," as they quaintly ex- pressed it, " thereby to keep and leave to posterity the memorial of several places of note in our dear native country of England." + There is no ground for supposing that the first settlers of this town came from Bedford in England.
Together with its new name, the plantation re- ceived the usual outfit of an orderly New England community. Joseph Theale was appointed chief officer of the train band. Abraham Ambler was empowered to grant warrants, administer the oath, and join persons in marriage. The same impor- tant person was chosen by his fellow-settlers as town clerk and recorder of lands. But there were two offices in the gift of the people, for the filling of which they had not waited to be formally con-
swear officers and witnesses, and to joyne persons in marriage ac- cording to law : and they doe free the sayd towne of Bedford from the country rates for the space of three yeares next ensueing. (Co- lonial Records of Connecticut.)
* " Hop-meadow " was the name given by the early settlers of Simsbury, Conn., to a part of their plantation. (History of Sims- bury, Granby, and Canton, by Noah A. Phelps.)
+ Colonial Records of Connecticut.
19
HISTORY OF BEDFORD CHURCH.
stituted a town. At one and the same meeting, the proprietors received Joshua Webb as an inhab- itant to be their miller, and called a Minister.
The settlement of a Minister was always the fore- most care of a New England plantation. Doubt- less the founders of this town were disposed so to recognize it. But they had already been remind- ed of their duty by the General Court of the col- ony. The very first order of the Court, relating to this settlement, required that provision be made for the "first Minister of the place," and for his successors in office " forever." *
I have dwelt thus at length upon the period and the circumstances of the early settlement, because it has appeared to me that these facts might justly affect our understanding of the character and the history of this town. It is surely not without sig- nificance that this latest plantation of Connecticut, projected like a vein of finer metal into the meta-
May 19, 1681 .- This Court being moved to grant liberty to erect a plantation upon the Hopp Ground and adjacent lands, about 12 miles to the northwards of Standford, doe grant their re- quest, and appoynt Captn Richard Olmsteed, Lnt Jonath. Belland Lnt Jonath. Lockwood and Mr. Joseph Theale, to be a commit- tee to entertein such persons as shall plant there, and to manage, order and disspose of the affayres of that plantation, according to their best skill and so as may best advance the welfare and growth of the sayd plantation ; and that they are to take care that there be a suitable lott layd out for the first minister of the place, and a lott for the ministry, to be and belong to the ministry for ever. - Conn. Records.
A certified copy of the above order, taken 21 Jan., 1696, is in the possession of Mrs. John C. Holmes, Lewisboro'.
I681. 2 December.
1681. 19 May.
20
HISTORY OF BEDFORD CHURCH.
1681.
morphic mass of our New York population, while yet the Puritan fervour lasted, and just at the time when this province was taking its permanent shape, bore so close and so demonstrable a relation to the great civil and religious movement that formed New England. I do not insist that this vein was one of pure gold. Inferior elements mingled, we know, from the first, with the better materials of the New England colonization .* Doubtless there were such elements here. But we have ample evidence that the founders of this town were for the most part upright and God-fearing men. Some of them, as John Holmes, Abraham Ambler, John Wescot, Zachariah Roberts, Cornelius Seely, and Daniel Jones, were active Christian men - " gifted brethren," to use the phrase of that dayt-to whom, in the absence of a Minister, the commu- nity looked as competent to guide and edify them in their religious life. Such a man, too, was "the pious and good Deacon Miller "-so styled in a legal document relating to those early times, as one whose testimony should be held sufficient to establish a controverted fact. #
* Many of the young men were "wild enough," says Bradford : History of Plymouth Plantation, p. 106.
+ "They ... are so poor that they are not able to maintain scholars for their ministers, but are necessitated to make use of a gifted brother in some places." (Transactions of the Commission- ers in New England, 1665. Paper relating to the colony of New Plymouth. Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, 1661-1668, page 344.)
# Testimony in suit for ejectment.
21
HISTORY OF BEDFORD CHURCH.
These are matters of record. I have no doubt that there are traditions which confirm the record ; that among the descendants of these men there linger memories of their simple manners and their antique virtues, their love of truth and honesty, their reverence for the Sabbath, and their strong faith in the teachings of God's word. And if something of all this remains with their children, it is meet and right that we should give credit for it to the fathers. It is right that we should recall the early times in which principles were tested, and character was formed ; remembering "in what a forge and what a heat " the institutions we now possess were long ago cast and fashioned.
The action we commemorate to-day, as taken two hundred years ago, relates to the location of the "Meeting-house" or church of the first settlers. Twelve days before, the proprietors of the Hop Ground, still residing in Stamford, had appointed five of their number* "to lay out the Town Plot both for situation and also to lay out the house lots, and one lotment in the field on the east side of the plaine to every proprietor." A " convenient lot " was also to be left in the Town Plot, and a lot in the field, " proportionable with the others," for the use of the town. The committee thus ap- pointed made report that they had fulfilled their task, laying out the street, and designating the
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.