USA > New York > Chenango County > Norwich > History of the first one hundred years of the First Congregational Church, Norwich, New York, 1814-1914 > Part 18
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that when she grew up she did as little of it as she could.
When little Harriet Beecher was nine years old her father came east to be the pastor of Plymouth Church. There are those in the church today who remember the grand play-times they used to have with Mr. Beecher and his children at the minister's house. The oldest daughter was a quiet child and early responsible for the little ones, she was at nine already a caretaker. Mrs. Howard used to tell her children how her first sight of Hattie Beecher was of an anxious little mother caring for baby brother. This care taking was a strain on the child's health and Mr. Beecher tried to relieve it by sending her to stay with Mrs. Stowe and back to Ohio to school, but her heart always longed for the home baby and in spite of good times she always found a baby to cuddle and care for. But the best relief from this early responsibility was her heritage of humor and love of beauty. The father and daughter collected stories and garden seeds for each other as long as he lived. Mrs. Beecher felt it wise that her little daughter should be a woman in all household tasks, but was shocked to see her laugh with and at her father, which doubled the amusement they got out of their jokes. The correspondence of thirty years after she left home was filled with stories and plant lore.
The Brooklyn childhood ended in 1858, when Mr. Beecher sent his daughter to Andover to stay with Mrs. Stowe for the winter.
It was a gay household of young people, among whom Samuel Scoville, a student at the Seminary, took a leading part, acting as amanuensis for Mrs. Stowe, teaching Fred Stowe to fence and Hattie Beecher and Elizabeth Stuart Phelps skate.
Later in the winter, the cousins, Hattie and Eliza Stowe and Hattie Beecher, were sent to Paris to school to await Mrs. Stowe and Mrs. Howard, who came with
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a large party in the summer. Their rallying point was Lausanne, where Mr. Ruskin was staying and " Little Miss Beecher," as he called her, had Mr. Ruskin as her guide in delightful Alpine excursions and with her cousins was one of the many groups of young girls to whom he gave drawing lessons.
The party travelled, as parties did in those days, with courier and carriage from Switzerland down to Florence for the first part of the winter, then with Mr. and Mrs. Browning went to Rome for Easter and south to meet the spring at Sorento and Capri. In this won- derful year of travel and association with the leaders of the world's thought the quiet, caretaking girl bloomed into beautiful womanhood, and her engage- ment in Rome to Mr. Scoville was the romance of the gay party of young folk.
Her letters from Italy tell not only of the old beauty and new love but of the new Italy that was being made. Mrs. Stowe's letters to the Independent are ar- ranged for through Hattie Beecher's letters to her father, so that the Austrian police, who have their eyes on Mrs. Stowe, shall not capture them.
Perugia is bloody from her great fight; Garibaldi and Pio Nono and Cavour jostle the Caesars and St. Paul in Hattie Beecher's letters.
From Italy they came home to the great Civil War in America. The bridal preparations in 1861 were laid aside while the bride-to-be ran that famous new time- saver, the sewing machine, for long days in the Ply- mouth Church parlors, where the ladies were fitting out the Plymouth Phalanx, and, when in September she came out under the trees at the Peekskill cottage to be married, war had already scattered the comrades of the gay party of young folks.
She was born and bred into labor and sacrifice, and patriotism always seemed to her as necessary as Chris- tianity. When in 1898 war was again in the land she
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threw herself into it with an enthusiasm that shamed our colder generation.
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When her young husband took her out to Norwich, N. Y., Mrs. Scoville was perhaps the shyest wife that ever a minister had, and probably Mothers' meetings, Ladies' Prayer meetings, etc., would have killed her if she had not been gifted with laughter. She may have failed as a leader of meetings, but in the days when nurses were scarce sickness entered no home in the parish that she did not go to, and while her social calls were often neglected, days and nights were freely given to those in trouble. Scarlet fever and diphtheria, dread diseases that we hardly dare face now in our own families, she went to as simply as she cared for her own babies. To some a young minister and his wife seem a very hum-drum couple, but these young people, fresh from the Old World's splendors and the associa- tions of great actors in those stirring days, took the widespread country parish as their world, and for eighteen years carried every interest of the town in their hearts, in a way that gave them the natural leadership that we sometimes fear the clergy are losing
In those days there was no professional florist in Norwich, and the parsonage greenhouse furnished the flowers for church and party, wedding and funeral. Mrs. Scoville's home life centered in her nursery and flowers, and her babies enjoyed sun and dirt baths, penned in a corner of the greenhouse, while their mother worked among her flowers. The minister-went to church with a case of flowers as regularly as a ser- mon, and it was their pride that there never was a Sun- day without flowers in their church, winter or sum- mer.
For Mrs. Scoville, leaving Norwich, where she had lived the first eighteen years of her married life, was a great sorrow. The Stamford home brought here near
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her father and her children as they went to college, and friends were kind, but it is hard to change habits of friendship.
Trained nurses and florists stood ready to do for money what she had given and taken for love-her children were out of her arms. She was not strong and she never fitted into the active life of her new home. The time came early when her world was within her own home. There she mothered all; nursed her two grand-babies through troublesome days, cared for her mother through sad, long weeks of suffering and when that ended gave over the care of her home to her . daughter.
In the autumn of 1901, Mr. and Mrs. Scoville came back to Brooklyn to live. Mr. Scoville took up the labor in the church with joyful enthusiasm, helping in Father Beecher's church as well as doing Christ's work, but the days were short; in March he was forced by illness to give up his labor and died in April. At his bedside his wife closed her years of caretaking. More than fifty years before she had come into the Brooklyn life an old fashioned little girl mothering her baby brother, but when she left that deathbed she turned to her daughter to be cared for. Slowly her powers failed, speech and hand and foot and yet mem- ory and sight and fun held their own. The day she was taken with her last illness she was absorbed in " The Long Roll," a novel that puzzles many not as well versed as she was in their country's history. In the week of illness when life flickered up for a few min- utes it was for a joke, or a caress.
The ten helpless years have been a beautiful gift to her children, a testimony of the dominance of the loving spirit and warm interests over the weak and failing body.
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( C. R. Johnson, 1902.)
Mr. Scoville's first visit to Norwich was on Sunday, February 3, 1861, in the " wee sma' hours " of the morning, in company with Miss Nettie C. Pike.
It was a winter's morning in the month which puts in more winter to the mile in " Old Chenango " than any other of the season, and the journey had been a very tedious one; but he never ceased to enjoy telling the story of it and he always made it very amusing. Neither the story of his journey through rugged old Scotland, nor over the more rugged Alps, nor yet through historic Italy afforded so much fun to him in the telling as the story of this journey of 260 miles between New York and Norwich, which required nearly a day and two nights to accomplish. He told it with great gusto, and it was for the last time, at the wedding of Harvey B. Daniels and Fannie L. Makepeace, in New York at which he officiated but a little more than a New York, at which he officiated but a little more than a year before death called him " over the great divide." Several of his old friends from Norwich were guests, among whom was the companion of that journey. He. had come to Norwich at the invitation of the trustees of the church to preach on this Sunday of his arrival. Mr. William T. Gregg, who had lately removed from Norwich to Brooklyn, accompanied Miss Pike to the ferry and introduced them, placing the young Miss in his care for the journey. As they thus met neither of them could forsee how closely their lives would run along together during the coming years, nor how much help her skill and genius would be in the work of the future pastor. She had been organist in the church for most of the time since 1855. Four years later she became Mrs. Fred Mitchell through the execu- tive and kindly offices of Mr. Scoville.
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They left New York by the Erie Railroad about 5 P. M., February 1, for Binghamton. When near Great Bend the track was found to be covered with ice, which the male passengers, Mr. Scoville among them of course, volunteered to clear away and each took his turn at the chopping. It was full daylight when the weary company reached Binghamton. Soon our two travelers took train for Chenango Forks, where they had breakfast and then took the weary stage coach, drawn by four weary horses over a no less weary road leading up the valley to Norwich. They should have finished this part of the journey at about 4 o'clock Saturday afternoon, but it was 2 o'clock Sun- day morning when Mr. Scoville alighted at the Eagle Hotel and was taken in charge by Prof. Charles Hop- kins, who was then boarding at that hostelry, her father, John G. Pike, was there to receive the young lady. A few other men prominent in the church, were present also and cordially greeted the young clergyman.
It is easy to imagine that, after the experiences of this journey, Mr. Scoville was not in the condition of body nor brain to appear at his best as a candidate before the congregation which had been for some years enjoying the scholarly and experienced ministrationa of Rev. Hiram Doane. Added to this was the fact that he found the situation very different from what he had supposed. Prof. Hopkins, who had been his classmate at Yale, had recommended him to the trustees and at their request had written Mr. Scoville, inviting him to come up for a Sunday and preach, but made no refer ence to the disrupted state of the church. Mr. Scoville learned that on his way to Norwich. It was a very great disappointment to the young divine but he could not turn back then. He came, but with hardly the enthusiasm for which, before the year closed he became so noted in the village. At the hour for morning serv- ice he was on hand at " Coffin Hall " and preached the
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first sermon he had ever written. Those were not the days of twenty minute sermons either, but he " filled up the time " all right. After the benediction came the usual hand shake; and the " left handed " compli- ment of old Father Enos, which Mr. Scoville so much enjoyed telling :
" Young man, I hope you will learn how to preach some day."
In the evening he preached his second original ser- man. Monday and Tuesday were spent in getting acquainted with the people, studying the situation and forming some of those friendships, which with the pass- ing of more than forty years have remained ever fresh and are now left as blessed memories. Once more the weary stage coach called for him and he returned to Brooklyn and to his studies in Union Theological Semi- nary in New York city, in which he was then a student and from which he graduated in the May following, and was licensed to preach by New York and Brook- lyn association.
After his return to New York he thought a good deal over the future of this church. The more he studied it the more impressed he was that God had called him to the task of settling the difficulties in it; and so he waited for God to open the way. The weeks went on into some months and the call did not come; yet his faith was Abrahamic and did not die out. Mr. Beecher said: "Sam, I wouldn't wait any longer." " Yes I will; it will come," he replied. Among other things enlistment in the the army was contemplated; but God had a different work for him and who shall say it was not as important.
" Every thing comes to him who waits." On Tues- day, June 11, 1861, after some correspondence, Judge Lewis Kingsley mailed him " a call to preach three months on trial," voted by the trustees the day before and he was in Norwich June 22, and began the engage-
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ment next day, Sunday, June 23.
Six days before he arrived, work had been begun on a new church on the site of the one burned three years before. He entered into the work with so much en- thusiasm that the corner stone was laid August 3, at 2 o'clock P. M., with quite elaborate ceremonies, in which he took a leading part, assisted by the pastors in town and the Congregational pastors from Greene, Oxford and Sherburne. An hymn, composed for the occasion by Judge Kingsley, was sung by the audience to the " Old Hundredth .. "
During the summer he boarded at the Eagle Hotel, his room looking out upon " The East Green," where, on summer afternoons, in haying time " the boys " from the shops and stores would congregate for a game of " Four Old Cat "-the modern game, if then in- vented, had not yet reached Norwich. The young min- ister did not long resist the temptation but was soon among them with coat and vest off, a leader in the game. He would throw, catch or bat a ball, or take as solid a " bump " as any of them. The good deacons and staid sisters stood agast; but the minister did not believe in letting the de'il have all the fun there was to be had in life, and said if any one ought to have a good time it was a Christian. His logic won. He showed the boys that they could play ball and have just as much fun and yet be Christian gentlemen-a revela- tion to some of the people of Norwich. They found that a disciple of muscular Christianity had come among them who practiced his faith as well as preached it. At any rate he had won " the boys." Day after day he played with them on " The Green." Profanity ceased, the unseemly jest was not spoken and an influence for good was felt through all the village. The people found that Jesus Christ was just as good for the week day as for Sunday. Thus passed the first summer with the young pastor-he was 27 then. He was making a place
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for himself in Norwich, so that when the " three months on trial " drew near its close, there was nothing to do but call him to the permanent pastorate. A call had been made by the people-the church merely rati- fied it. He belonged to Norwich as fully as though he had always lived there.
On September 17, six days before the expiration of the " three months on trial," we find him at Greene before a session of Susquehanna association being or- dained; and the next day the formal call was tendered him.
I have no remembrance of my first acquaintance, with Mr. Scoville, but it must have been very soon after he came here; probably through Prof. Hopkins, whose pupil I had been in the Academy a few years before; but I know it was not long before we became very warm friends; and eternity can alone reveal the extent to which his life has been a power for good in my own; and what it was for me it was for many other young men of those days, and the years which followed. It must have been the next or the second day after he returned from the ordination, that an acquaintance from Guil- ford brought me word at the store that Mr. Scoville wanted me to " get the key and come to the Baptist Church at once "-about 11 A. M. As father always had a key at the store, I was not long in meeting Mr. Scoville at the church door. Very soon a barouche drove up and out stepped my Guilford friend-and a lady. I was given a pressing invitation to " witness the ceremony." We four " entered " the church and. the door was shut. Ascending to the audience room the happy couple presented themselves before the young minister in front of the pulpit and the fourth of the quartette became the " delighted audience," while the minister performed his first marriage ceremony. When the knot was tied the minister took the hand of each and in a quiet voice said : " I congratulate you. You
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. have got the start of me by about a week." Then the " audience " added congratulations, the carriage bore the happy couple away and the minister and " audi- ence " went to dinner. A very few days later the minister left for Peekskill, where on September 25, he was married by Mr. Beecher to his only daughter, Har- riet Eliza.
A few weeks were spent in a vacation and wedding tour, which ended at Norwich about November 1. Having accepted the call tendered him he preached his first sermon as regular pastor, Sunday, November 3; the services being held for the first time in " Concert Hall " in the " Piano Block " facing East Park; and all the church services were held in this hall until the new church was finished.
The church building was inclosed " before winter set in," for the new pastor took up the matter with an enthusiasm which knew no failure, and it became very contagious throughout the church. On Monday, six- teenth of next June, 1862, the building was dedicated. Again Judge Kingsley wrote an hymn for the occasion which was, as before, sung by the audience to " Old Hundred." The village pastors and some from nearby towns assisted in the dedication services, and Mr. Sco- ville preached the dedicatory sermon.
Despite the many unfavorable circumstances, the pastor did not allow the spiritual interests of the church to sleep. The records were very loosely kept in those days, but we know that as many as fifteen united with the church during the winter. Among the number were Mr. and Mrs. Scoville-the first pastor of this church who thus fully became one with this people. Not alone in the church but in the community as well, he identified himself with whatever was helpful and uplift- ing; and in his church he at once set about the difficult task of harmonizing the discordant and divergent ele- ments. A single sentence in the remarks he made after
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the corner stone of the church was laid in place, gives the keynote of the beautiful anthem of his after en- deavor, " Beneath this stone we bury all bitterness, all hatred against brother members forever."
Wednesday, September 24, 1862 ,there came a new joy into the parsonage. A chubby little daughter was born, and the name, Harriet Beecher, was ready for her from the mother, but she was the father in miniature.
As soon as Mr. Scoville was fully settled in the pas- torate he began quiet but very earnest work toward uniting the severed church. It took two years to bring the first public avowal, but he had done the work so well that when the surrender came it came to stay. Saturday, July 4, 1863, at the close of Preparatory Lecture, he had the great joy of putting to vote a reso- lution recinding the act of suspension and restoring to full and free membership all those persons living in town who had been suspended. In May, 1867, a similar vote was taken in the case of the last one of those who had been suspended. He had lived in the west for a number of years, but not long before had returned to Norwich for permanent residence. Again Mr. Scoville presided at the meeting and the vote was unanimous; the action in both cases being without solicitation on the part of the suspended members. Of all Mr. Sco- ville's efforts for the good of this church and com- munity this one stands out the greatest of them all. The life he lived was so true, so whole-souled, so gen- erous, so faithful, so cheery; in a word, so Christian that storms of resentment were speedily dissipated in the sunshine of his personality and the love of his great heart. During all these efforts the spiritual life of the church was not neglected. He believed in revivals thor- oughly. Hardly a winter went by without one follow- ing the Week of Prayer. Usually he would conduct them alone for several weeks. Then as the interest deepened, an evangelist would be called in to continue
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the work. Sometimes no one but himself took the lead in the work. At other times Union meetings would be held; but in whatever way the meetings were carried on he was sure to take a leading part in them. Occa- sionally he would go on invitation to towns in the vicinity and hold evangelistic meetings. During 1862, twenty united with the church. In 1863, twenty-five; in 1864, twelve; in 1865, fifty-nine; in 1866, thirty-two. (See p. 102.)
In the summer of 1866 another daughter was born to the happy parents-Annie Howard. As the first bore the similitude of the father, so this one was the counterpart of the mother. When about three years old she was taken with a very serious illness. The good Dr. Bellows gave no hope other than the very faint one that " while there was life there was hope." The life hung by a very slender thread for weeks, and the interest in her behalf become so general that practically every one was praying for her restoration. At every meeting for prayer and worship " Little Annie " was sure to be a subject of prayer. God heard the cry and answered with complete resoration and today she is " full of good works " and has her life work in helping the humble and lowly to noble thoughts and aspirations. In 1865 was born the first boy and named for the famous grandsire, Henry Ward Beecher. When about a year old he became seriously sick and died in Brooklyn at the Beecher home, the well known 120 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn. The little body was brought to the Norwich home, and at the funeral the father officiated. As he stood over the casket, in which was seen the beautiful face, the father's full heart poured itself out in words which seemed inspired. No one present on that December afternoon will ever for- get the scene. The key to the casket and a little pair of shoes were ever in sight in the drawer of the writing table in the pastor's study. May we not believe that an
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inspiration went from them into the sermons written over them ?
The next child was also a boy named from the father, Samuel Scoville-and like the father, " Sam " for short, adding the " Jr." as he came to man's es- tate.
The last, again a boy-William Herbert, named from the two Beecher uncles, was intended to be nicknamed " Wilbert (the nickname of both uncles joined in one word) but just plain " Will " was as far as it got and the " Bert " lies buried in the second initial to this day. " Sam " belongs to the Roosevelt " strenuous " type, and " Will " to the quiet but strong Mckinley type of men.
In 1871, Mr. Scoville attended the New York State Sunday School Convention and, without taking any one into his council, put in an invitation for Norwich as the next place of meeting a year hence. The committee re- ported in favor and the convention accepted bv a unanı- mous vote. When he returned home he reported what he had done. Very many said "" Impossible !" but the next summer as the time drew near, he had conquered and all the churches united and worked with a will. The homes of all the people were opened. Everything was thoroughly organized. When the convention came, June 19-21, the attendance was very large from all over the state, but there was no lack. All were provided for and room to spare. The first day the sessions were held in the First Baptist Church, that being the largest room in town; yet that was not large enough and was so poorly ventilated, the weather being very warm, that the heat inside the building was oppressive. Mr. Sco- ville thereupon proposed that the future afternoon and evening sessions be held on " The Green " in front of the Court House. The plan was at once adopted. A platform and seats were soon erected with boxes and boards and the following sessions were held in com-
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fort, Mr. Albert Cary leading the singing at Mr. Sco- ville's suggestion.
After this experience Mr. Scoville saw more and more clearly the need of a more commodious room for the accommodation of large assemblies. His idea of a church was that it should be in every proper way an educator of the community; and I have no doubt that following out this idea led him to assume the responsi- bility of providing such a building. At any rate he soon proposed that the church be enlarged to a proper size to fulfill his ideal. " I want it big enough to accom- modate the people," he said. Of course such an under- taking needed time for its development; so with much patient and quiet work the project finally took form in the present building, which was begun in June, 1873; Mr. Scoville with shovel in hand loading the first wagon with dirt.
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