USA > Rhode Island > Washington County > Narragansett > A history of the Episcopal church in Narragansett, Rhode Island, including a history of other Episcopal churches in the state > Part 42
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Artekilly, hard by Newtown-Leamevaddy ; and the president, Mr.
informed, a fortification ; but is now very much in ruins, and a great part of the house had fallen down. The garden had been laid out with mounds and walls, and a mound, erected by Abraham James Hillhouse, where his father gave an entertainment to all the people of the country, is now vis- ible."
James Hillhouse, second son of John Hillhouse, was educated at Glas- gow, and emigrated to New England about the year 1720. He published a funeral sermon on the death of his mother. She is styled that eminently pious gentlewoman, Mrs. Rachael Hillhouse, of Free Hall and county Londonderry, Ireland, who died January 17th, 1716.
He was a clergyman, and settled on a landed estate, which he transmit- ted to his family in the town of Montville, in the county of New London, Connecticut. He married Mary Fitch, grand-daughter of the Rev. James Fitch, the first clergyman of Norwich, by his second wife, Priscilla Mason, daughter of Major John Mason, the celebrated commander of the expedi- tion against the Pequots.
Mrs. Hillhouse was a woman of superior education and eminent piety, as her letters to her sons, which are still preserved, afford proof. The Rev. James Hillhouse was installed over the church at Montville, in 1722 ; he died Dec. 15, 1740, aged 53 years. Mrs. Hillhouse died Oct. 25, 1768. Their children were, William, James Abraham, and Rachel, who died young.
William, eldest son of James Hillhouse and Mary Fitch, lived and died as a country gentleman, on the portion of his father's estate which fell to him. He was chosen for fifty-three successive years, to represent his dis- trict in the legislature of the State, and was the Judge Hillhouse to whom you refer. in your letter. He was married Nov. 1st, 1750, to Sarah Gris- wold, sister to the first Governor Griswold, a woman of great excellence. She died March 15, 1777, in the 69th year of her age. Their sons were, John, James, David, William, Samuel, Oliver, and Thomas. William Hill- house lived to the age of 88, and died, I believe, in the year 1816.
James Abraham Hillhouse, the second son of the Rev. James Hillhouse, was born at Montville about 1730. He was educated at Yale College, and acted as tutor in that institution for several years with great acceptance .- He was a distinguished lawyer, and for many years a member of the coun- cil of the State. He died at New Haven, of a slow fever, Oct. 3d, 1775, in the 46th year of his age, deeply and long lamented. He was a mem- ber of the Centre Church, New Haven, and eminent, even from his child- hood, for his consistent piety. He married Mary Lucas, only daughter of Augustus Lucas and Mary Caner. Mrs. Hillhouse long survived him, and closed a life, dignified by understanding and piety, at the venerable age of 88 years, in the summer of 1821. They had no child, but adopted James, the second son of William Hillhouse, who was received into the family at the age of seven years, and was long known to the public as Treasurer of Yale College, United States Senator, and first Commissioner of the Connec- ticut School Fund. Mr. James Hillhouse was twice married ; first to Sa- rah Lloyd, Jan. 1st, 1779, a niece of Dr. James Lloyd, of Boston, who died the same year ; second to Rebecca Woolsey, daughter of Col. Melancthon Taylor Woolsey, of Long Island, who died Dec. 29th, 1813. He left two sons, James Abraham Hillhouse, of Sachems Wood, New Haven, the au-
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Thomas Clap,+ was my scholar, when I came first into these parts, (1722.
# Thomas Clap was the son of Stephen, and grandson of Thomas Clap, who migrated to New England with the early settlers, between 1630 and 1639, and settled in Scituate, Massachusetts, in 1640. Thomas Clap, the son of Stephen, was born in Scituate in 1703, and graduated at Harvard in 1722. He was one of the most distinguished men of his time. He was ordained at Windham, Connecticut, in 1726, and settled over the church there. He was chosen President of Yale College in 1740, and continued in the chair until 1764, when he resigned ; and on a visit to Scituate, in 1765, he died.
President Stiles, his successor, speaks of him as standing in the first ranks of the learned men of the age. "He studied," says he, " the higher branches of mathematics, and was one of the first philosophers America has produced, and equalled by no man except Professor Winthrop.
As a theologian, he stood very high ; as President of the college, he was indefatigable and verv successful in promoting the interests of learning, and raising the reputation of the college.
He was the means of building the college edifice and chapel, and gave frequent public dissertations in the various departments of learning. Mr. Clap constructed the first orrery, or planetarium, in America. He also made a collection of materials for a history of Connecticut.
He wrote many books, or rather pamphlets, in defence of the New Eng- land churches in Whitefield's time, from 1734, to 1755. That he was a powerful opponent to Whitefield, and did much to counteract his disorgan- izing measures, we can easily understand-when, in looking over the pam- phlets, we find him quoting Whitefield's own words, and declaring himself ready to testify to the correctness of his quotations, viz., 'I intend to turn the generality of the ministers of the country out of their pulpits, (who are half beasts and half devils) and bring over ministers from England.'" Mr. Clap also wrote a valuable history of Yale College.
thor of Hadad and other poems, who was born Sept. 26th, 1789, and died Jan. 5th, 1841 ; and Augustus Lucas Hillhouse, for many years a resident in France.
The late James A. Hillhouse left no son, but his eldest daughter has been recently married to William Hillhouse, M. D., youngest son of Tho- mas Hillhouse, Albany county, in the State of New York.
Augustus Lucas, the father-in-law of Mr. James A. |Hillhouse, was the son of Augustus Lucas, a French protestant, who fled his country after the om revocation of the edict of Nantz, about A. D. 1700, in company with Mr. Laurens, of South Carolina, who had married his sister. His daughter Bar- sheba, was afterwards Madam Johnson, of Newport, distinguished for her literary attainments, and died the wife of Matthew Robinson, Esq. Mrs. Hillhouse had books belonging to her grandfather, in five or six different languages. Mr. Lucas married Barsheba, daughter of Rev. Joseph Elliot, son of the Rev. John Elliot, known as the 'Apos'le of the Indians,' who was the mother of his son. It is believed that he was buried in the grave- yard at Newport. Mrs. Lucas, wife of Augustus Lucas the younger, was sister of the Rev. Henry Caner, thirty years rector of King's Chapel, Bos- on. Both she and Madam Caner lived many years, and both died in the
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and, on all occasions, gratefully acknowledges his receiving the first rudiments of his learning from me, who, by the way, have not but a modicum to boast of myself.
Connecticut is a colony remarkable for industry, and a tolerable . good soil ; and no place this way can boast of larger exportations, in proportion to its extent and inhabitants. Lumber, so far as that means barrel and hogshead staves and heading hoops, clift boards and shingles of cedar, are shipped off here in great quantities; and the markets in the other main land provinces, as well as our West India Islands, owe a good deal of their supply to the butter, beef, mutton, pork, Indian corn, and wheat, of this colony.
Travelling eastward, the next colony that rises to view is the little - colony of Rhode Island, &c., where Providence has fixed me, and where I have resided in quality of missionary thirty-one years last April.
This colony is bounded westerly withConnecticut, southerly on the sea, easterly and northerly by the large province of the Massachu.' setts Bay, which running a long way up into the land, by a south and north line, joins New York province ; by which means our commu- nication and Connecticut's, landward, is cut off, and both colonies staked down to fixed and determined bounds.
This little district extends itself no more than about forty miles in length, and thirty in breadth, or it may be forty, [for I write to you, sir, from memory.] It contains 1,024,000 acres, and is peopled with about 30,000 inhabitants, young and old, white and black.
It was first purchased for less than the value of fifty pounds ster- ling, of an Indian emperor, named Miantinomy, and other inferior Sachems, his tributary princes ; and peopled by refugees from Massachusetts colony, in 1637. By a letter dated from on board ship Arabella, in Plymouth harbor, in England, begging the prayers and
family of the Hon. James Abraham Hillhouse, one at the age of 84, and the other 89.
Dr. McSparran, in his America Dissected, written in 1752, speaking of New Haven College, observes: "One of the present Fellows is a son of Mr. James Hillhouse, who lived near Artekilly hard by Newtown Leame- vaddy," in Londonderry, Ireland.
Rev. Joseph Elliot, before mentioned, married Sarah, daughter of Gov. Wm. Brenton, and through her Mary Lucas (afterwards Hillhouse) inher- ited various tracts of Land in Narragansett.
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blessings of the Bishop and clergy of England, these Massachusetts puritans disclaim any design of separating from the Church of Eng- land ; avowing their intention to be only a secession, in point of place, but no departure from doctrines or worship .* Notwithstand-
* " In contrast with the current hostility to the church in England and in this country, we may place the following historical evidence of the views with which some of the puritan emigrants to these shores regarded the English Church. The orthography of the letter is not uniform. An accurate transcript is here presented, and may be new to many .- Hutch- inson.
1630. "The Arabella, on board which the Governor and several of the assistants, left Yarmouth, between the 7th and 10th of April. On the 7th, the Governor, and divers others on board, signed a paper directed to their brethren of the Church of England, to remove suspicions, or misconstruc- tions, and to ask their prayers. The paper has occasioned a dispute, wheth- er the first settlers of Massachusetts were of the Church of England or not. However problematical it may be, what they were while they re- mained in England, left no room for doubt after they arrived in America."
The humble request of his Majesty's loyal subjects, the Governor and. company late gone to New England, to the rest of their brethren in and of the Church of England :
REVEREND FATHERS AND BRETHREN,
" The general rumor of this solemn enterprize, wherein ourselves with others, through the providence of the Almighty, are engaged, as it may spare us the labor of imparting our occasion unto you, so it gives us the more encouragement to strengthen ourselves by the procurement of the prayers of the Lord's faithful servants. For which end, we are bold to have recourse unto you, as those whom God hath placed nearest his throne of mercy ; which as it affords you the more opportunity, so it imposeth the greater bond upon you to intercede for his people in all their straights ; we beseech you, therefore, by the mercies of the Lord Jesus, to consider us as your brethren, standing in very great need of your help, and earnestly imploring it. . And however your charity may have met with some occa- sion of discouragement through the misreport of our intentions, or through the disaffection, or indiscretion of some of us, or rather among us ; for we are not of those that dream of perfection in this world ; yet we desire you would be pleased to take notice of the principals and body of our compa- ny, as those who esteem it an honor to call the Church of England, from whence we rise, our dear Mother ; and cannot part from our native coun- try, where she specially resideth, without much sadness of heart, and many tears in our eyes, ever acknowledging that such hope and part we have obtained in the common salvation, we have received in her bosom, and sucked it from her breasts. We leave it not, therefore, as loathing that milk wherewith we were nourished there, but blessing God for the parentage and education, as members of the same body, shall always re- joice in her good, and unfeignedly grieve for any sorrow that shall ever be- tide her, and while we have breath, sincerely desire and endeavor the con-
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ing that pretence, they were no sooner settled in their new habita- tions, than their old unopened purposes appeared ; the common-
tinuance and abundance of her welfare, with the enlargement of her bounds in the kingdom of Christ Jesus.
" Be pleased, therefore, Reverend Fathers and Brethren, to help forward this work now in hand ; which if it prosper, you shall be the more glorious, however your judgment is with the Lord, and your reward with your God. It is a usual and laudable exercise of your charity, to recommend to the prayers of your congregations the necessities and straights of your private neighbors ; do the like for a church springing out of your own bowels .- We conceive much hope that this remembrance of us, if it be frequent and fervent will be a most prosperous gale to our sails, and provide such a passage and welcome for us, from the God of the whole earth, as both we shall find it and yourselves, with the rest of friends who shall hear of it, shall be much enlarged to bring in such daily returns of thanksgiving, as the specialties of his providence and goodness may justly challenge at all our hands. You are not ignorant, that the spirit of God stirred up the Apostle Paul to make continual mention of the church of Phillipi, (which was a colony at Rome); let the same spirit, we beseech you, put you in mind, that are the Lord's remembrancers, to pray for us without ceasing, (who are a weak colony from yourselves) making continual request for us to God in all your prayers.
" What we entreat of you that are the ministers of God, that we crave at your hands of all the rest of our brethren, that you would at no time for- get us in their private solicitations at the throne of grace.
"If any there be, who through want of clear intelligence of our course, or tenderness of affection towards you, cannot conceive so well of our way as we could desire, we would entreat such not to despise us, nor to desert us in their prayers and affections, but to consider rather, that we are so much the more bound to express the bowels of their compassion towards us; remembering always that both nature and grace doth bind us to relieve with our utmost and speediest power, such as are dear unto us, when we conceive them to be running uncomfortable hazards.
" What goodness you shall extend to us in this or any other christian kindness, we, your brethren in Christ Jesus, shall labor to repay in what duty we are or shall be able to perform ; promising, so far as God shall ena- ble us, to give him no rest on your behalves, wishing our heads and hearts may be as fountains of tears for your everlasting welfare, when we shall be in our poor cottages in the wilderness, overshadowed with the spirit of supplication, through the manifold necessities and tribulations which may not altogether unexpectedly, nor, we hope, unprofitably befall us. And so commending you to the grace of God in Christ, we shall ever rest,
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Your friends and brethren,
JOHN WINTHROP, Governor, CHARLES FINES, GEORGE PHILLIPS, RICHARD SALTONSTALL, ISAAC JOHNSON, THOMAS DUDLEY, WILLIAM CODDINGTON, &c"
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prayer was outvoted, and extempore prayer, then called the new way, was preferred to the old liturgic method of worship. From this time, they who clamored so loud against persecution, and the mea- sures taken in England to exact conformity, immediately made a law, that none should be free of their jurisdiction, or capable of the privileges of their new colony, but such as were members, that is (in their sense) actual communicants, in their new modelled churches. ! Many churchmen and some Anabaptists, who accompanied them in their embarkation, expecting to meet with no molestation on account of their principles, and way of worship, expressed their dissatisfac- tion, and refused submission to this law. Whereupon they were first disfranchised, and an actual sentence of banishment pronoun- ced against them, unless they submitted by a short and certain day.
Before the time of carrying this sentence into execution, the heads of the distressed party peregrinated through the wild, unculti- vated wilderness, and fell in with Rhode Island : made the purchase above said, and employed the intermediate time between the sen- tence of their expulsion and the execution of it, in removing their families and effects to Rhode Island, and a town here called Provi- dence.
These Rhode Island refuges resolved themselves by their own, in- stead of a better authority, into a body politic, with liberty of con- science allowed to people of all persuasions, and became not a reg- ular and legal corporation, till king Charles the Second made them so in 1663, a day before, or a day after, he had incorporated the - colony of Connecticut. The grants, powers, and privileges of both patents, are to one and the same purpose, and consequently the civil constitution the same.
In Connecticut, I observed to you, that Independency was the re- ligion of the State ; but, in Rhode Island, no religion is established. There a man may, with impunity, be of any society or of none at all ; but the Quakers are, for the most part, the people in power.
As Quakerism broke out first in England in 1651, so in 1654, emissaries of that enthusiasm were dispatched to the West-Indies ; and no sooner did their preachers appear in Rhode Island, but they found many of the posterity of the first planters, too well prepared for the reception of that pestilent heresy. The 24 years that had run out from their first removal from England, and the 17 that had
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elapsed from their second settlement at Rhode Island, had carried off the stage of life most of those who received the first rudiments of re- ligion in the mother country. Their descendants and successors, without schools, without a regular clergy, became necessarily_rude and illiterate ; and, as Quakerism prevailed, learning was decried, ignorance and heresy so increased, that neither Epiphanius's, nor Sir Richard Blackmore's Catalogues, contain more heterodox and differ. ent opinions in religion than were to be found in this little corner. The magistrates of the Massachusetts, who had before borne so hard upon the Rhode Islanders, hanged four of these first Quaker speakers.
This, with other severities, exercised on their proselites in that province, contributed to send shoals of these sectaries to Rhode Isl- and, as to a safer sanctuary. This will account to you for the power and number of Quakers in this colony ; who, notwithstanding, did ¿ not aim at civil authority, until their brethren of Pennsylvania had got into the saddle of power ; and as they were sure of the ma- jor vote, they thought, and as it has proved, thought right, they might exercise those powers by the connivance, which their brethren did, by the consent of the crown.
م
In 1700, after Quakerism and other heresies had, in their turn, ruled and tinged all the inhabitants for the space of forty-six years, " the church of England, that had been lost here through the neglect of the crown, entered, as it were, unobserved and unseen, and yet not without some success. A little church was built in Newport, the metropolis of the colony, in 1702, and that in which I officiate in Naraganset, in 1707. There have been two incumbents before me, but neither of them had resolution enough to grapple with the diffi- culties of the mission above a year a-piece. I entered on this mis- sion in 1721, and found the people not a tabula rasa, or clean sheet of paper, upon which I might make any impressions I pleased ; but a field full of briars and thorns, and noxious weeds, that were all to be eradicated, before I could implant in them the simplicity of truth. However, by God's blessing, I have brought over to the church some hundreds, and among the hundreds I have baptized, there are at least 150, who received the sacrament at my hands, from twenty years old and upwards to seventy or 80. Ex pede Herculem. By this, you may guess, in how uncultivated a country my lot fell.
By my excursions and out labours, a church is built 25 miles to
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the westward of me,* but not now under my care ; another 16 miles to the Northward of me, where I officiate once a month ; and at a place six miles further off, on the Saturday before that monthly Sun- day. I gathered a congregation at a place called New Bristol, where
* This was called the Westerly church. It was built on a lot of land given for that purpose by George Ninigret, Chief Sachem of the Naragan- set Indians. It joined the Champlin farm, and when the church went down, was held by them by possession.
The town of Westerly was divided after the erection of the church, and it fell on the Charlestown side of the division line. The church was situ- ated on the north lot of the late Champlin farm, fronting on the public road, now owned by Robert Hazard, son of Joseph, and within a half a mile from the residence of the then Sachem. The deed was as follows :-
" To all people to whom these presents shall come, Greeting . Know ye, that I, George Ninigret, Chief Sachem and Prince of the Naraganset In- dians, in the colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, in New- England in America, for and in consideration of the love and affection which I have and bear for and towards the people of the Church of Eng- land, in Charelstown and Westerly, in the county of King's county, in the colony aforesaid, and for securing and settling the service and worship of God amongst them, according to the usage of that most excellent church, within the said Charlestown, at all times forever hereafter, and also for and in consideration of the sum of five shillings of the currency of said colony, and of the old tenor, to me in hand actually paid, by John Hill, Esq., Col. Christopher Champlin, both of said Charlestown and colony aforesaid, and Ebenezer Punderson,{ of Groton, in the county of New London and colony
t'Mr. Punderson graduated at Yale College in 1726, and was afterwards ordained a Congre- . gational minister over the second church in Groton. In 1732, he came into the Episcopal church, and crossed the Atlantic to be ordained. On his return he reorganized a church at the village of Poquetannuck, in North Groton, in 1739, which has ever since existed, though it has always been small, and has never been able to sustain a pastor of its own, but has principally relied on Norwich for ministerial supply. Mr. Punderson was for some years an itinerant missionary of the "Society for the Propagation of the Gospel," and preached at Groton, He- bron, and other places adjacent, from 1740 to 1750). He. was the first regular officiating clergy- man at Norwich, upon the erection of their church, in 1750.
The Society's abstracts for the year ending 1753, say :-
" The Rev. Mr. Punderson, the Society's itinerant missionary in Connecticut, having peti- tioned the Society to be settled a missionary, with only a part of his salary, (which is £70 per annum.) to the members of the Church of England in New Haven, the place of his nativity, (where a new church is built, to which Mr. Punderson gave the greatest part of the timber.) and to those of the neighboring towns of Guildford and Branford ; the Society, out of regard to the advanced years of Mr. Punderson, and to his past good services, and to the great troubles he has met with from some oppressive persons in Connecticut, have granted his request ; and have appointed him their missionary to the three towns of New Haven, Guildford, and Bran- ford, with a salary of fifty pounds per annum ; and desired him to recommend some proper young person, educated in one of the colleges there, to succeed him in the remaining part of his itinerant mission.""'
In another letter, dated Nov. 12, 1762, he remarks, that a'though he had entered upon his thirtieth year of service, he had, during that long time, " been enabled to officiate every Sun- day except one ; and that amid many difficulties and discouragements, he saw much to cheer him. In Guildford, New Haven and Branford, he had six churches and 160 commu- nicants; and had altogether, by the blessing of God on his endeavors, been the means of raising e'even churches in Connecticut." He shortly after removed to Rye, in the state of New York, where he died at an advanced age.
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now officiates a missionary from the Society, and I was the first Epis-
of Connecticut, clerk, the receipt whereof I do hereby acknowledge, have given, granted, bargained, sold, enfeoffed, conveyed, and by these presents do fully and absolutely give, grant, bargain, sell, enfeoff, and convey unto the said John Hill, Christopher Champlin and Ebenezer Punderson, their heirs and assigns forever, to the use of the Society for the propagation of the Gospel in foreign parts, and their successors forevermore, (which Soci- ety were incorporated by Letters Patent under the great seal of England.) one certain tract of land lying in said Charlestown, in the colony of Rhode Island aforesaid, containing forty acres, and whereon the Church of England in said Charlestown now stands, in the occupation of the aforesaid Chris- topher Champlin, and is butted and bounded as followeth : beginning at a stake with stones about it, thence running South 38 degrees East 45 rods and a quarter to a stone and heap of stones by the county road, and from thence Easterly as the road runs 128 rods to a stake with stones about it, from thence N. 14 W. 40 rods, to a small white oak tree marked on two sides, from thence South 50 W. 12 rods to a stake and stones, from thence a straight line to the first-mentioned corner ; with all erections and buildings standing on said premises, with all the woods, underwoods, pools, ponds, water, and watercourses, with every other appurtenance and privilege of any sort belonging to the said tract,of land, or in anywise appertaining, and the reversion or reversions, and the remainders, rents, issues, and profits of all and singular the premises.
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