USA > Vermont > History of the Baptists in Vermont > Part 15
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CHAPTER XII
BEGINNINGS EAST OF THE GREEN MOUNTAINS
1780-1800
THE BIRTH OF BAPTIST CHURCHES EAST OF THE MOUNTAINS
While the Spirit of God was active in the valleys west of the mountains, and ministers of apostolic zeal were winning converts and organizing churches and associations, a work of equal interest was in progress east of the mountains. Guilford vied with Shafts- bury, organizing four Baptist churches, three of them in successive years, and another a few years later. The relation between the inhabitants of Guilford and Brattleboro was much like that be- tween the people of Shaftsbury and Bennington. The settlers of Brattleboro were emigrants from Massachusetts, and they readily adopted the measures of their native state in the support of reli- gion, so that Brattleboro became uninviting to Baptists. The towns of Guilford and Dummerston, one lying to the south and the other to the north, were resorted to by them, where they could enjoy greater religious freedom.
The town of Guilford was chartered April 2, 1754, and was first settled, in 1761, by Micha Rice and family. During the last quarter of the eighteenth century, it was the most populous and influential town in the State. The first church organized there was a Congregational one, which settled its first pastor in 1775. His name was Royal Girley, who received the right of land reserved and located for that purpose.
The first Baptist preacher who held meetings regularly in Guilford was doubtless Rev. Mr. Whipple, of Brattleboro. He resided "over West River," coming there from Groton, Conn. He held some meetings in his own house, but his labors were mostly in Guilford and Halifax.
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The first Baptist church was constituted in 1780. Richard Williams was pastor. This church was located in the southeast part of the town. Ten years after its formation it numbered one hundred members. Jeremy Packer was its second pastor. He was ordained by this church and continued pastor for nineteen years, when he removed to Hinsdale, N. H. The church, after failing to report itself to the Association for several years, was dropped in 1826, and became extinct. The second church was constituted in 1781. Whitman Jacobs was pastor in 1796. A- mong the members of this church was Benjamin Carpenter, who served the State as Lieutenant-Governor from 1779 to 1781. The third church covenanted together in 1782. Perley Hicks was pastor, and preached half the time in dwelling houses and barns. In eleven years the church numbered over one hundred members. The fourth church was formed in 1797. Benjamin Bucklin was ordained pastor in 1802, and preached to them about twenty years, when that church dissolved.
At a council called by the second and third churches to meet in Joseph Slaughter's barn, about the first of April, 1800, called for the purpose of considering the expediency of uniting these two churches, it was voted expedient, and the two churches united under the name of the "United Church of Guilford."
Rev. Simeon Snow, from Upton, Mass., was at the council and the church invited him to preach to them awhile, which he con- sented to do, and afterward became their pastor, continuing three years. This Union church still lives. A further account of its history will be given in another chapter.
The Free Baptist cyclopedia mentions the existence of a Free Baptist church in Guilford, which became part of the Dover Quar- terly Meeting, in 1822 and, in 1831, had fifteen members. In 1842, this church is reported as lost to the Free Baptists. The time of the origin of this church being about that of the extinction of the Fourth church, it seems quite probable that this fourth church was found by David Marks, about the time that the Dover church and a few others in this locality went over to the Free Baptist denomination, and extended its life for twenty years in that fel- lowship.
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The same year that the Baptists were rallying and organizing in Guilford, Rev. Thomas Baldwin, then of Canaan, N. H., was holding a "wonderful meeting" in the west part of the town of Woodstock. Elder Jedidiah Hibbard was preaching about the same time. In July, 1780, it is thought the first Baptist church was organized in the North Parish, with Elder Elisha Ransom as its first pastor. Three years later this church, uniting with three others, formed an Association to which it gave its name, The Woodstock Association. Prominent among the members of this first church were Stephen Delano, Ichabod Churchill, Benjamin Burtch, James Washburn, all of whom had been members of the Congregational church in North Parish, and became Baptists in 1782. A few years later, Joseph Churchill also became convinced of the correctness of Baptist teachings, and joined their number. In the spring of 1785, a religious interest was awakened in the south part of the town and several young people were converted. Some of the members of the First church, uniting with the con- verts, formed the Second Baptist church, about 1785. It numbered among its members Abraham Kendall, Daniel, Ralph and Jabes Cottle, Stephen Smith, father of Elias Smith, and many others. Joel Butler was ordained its pastor, January 5, 1785, and minis- tered to this church two years. This church soon united with the First Church, and the united body grew in numbers and influence.
West Dummerston was another center of pioneer Baptist influence. About the year 1780, the families of Jesse, John and Louis Manly came to this place from Royalton, and were probably the first Baptists settled in town. Soon after the family of Ezekiel Wilson came, and that of John Turner, who came from Richmond, Maine, where he had been baptized. For a short time David Johnson was preaching here. The early records of the church are lost, but it is believed that the church was constituted during the year 1782, consisting of from six to ten members from the families mentioned. Isaiah Stone was their first pastor, and probably was ordained here. His pastorate continued till 1789. The years immediately following were years of blessing, under the ministry of Moses and Isaac Kenney, and upward of seventy-five were baptized. Berialı Willis and Samuel Wakefield were or-
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dained. Rufus Williams, of Fitzwilliam, was ordained pastor in 1793. Elder Josiah Goddard became pastor sometime in 1799, and during that great revival period, within two years one hundred converts were baptized into the membership of this early church, and the foundations of the present West Dummerston church were firmly laid.
One of the pioneer ministers in this region was Elder Wm. Ewens. He made an earnest effort to establish a Baptist church in Halifax, and was the first minister of any denomination to preach to that people. There was an attempt made to settle him as the minister of the town. They raised the frame of a meeting-house for him and partly boarded it. There was no ceremony at the laying of the foundation, but when the frame was up, Elder Ewens stood in the place where the door was to be and offered a prayer of consecration. The structure was never finished. It stood in the woods near the center of the town. A few meetings were held within the frame, but the town failed to settle Mr. Ewens for some reason, and the frame rotted down. For a num- ber of months or years the disappointed elder held meetings in log houses and schoolhouses, and a number were converted and baptized. Elder Warren renewed the attempt to found a Baptist church in Halifax, and succeeded in forming a small church in the north part of the town. A number of the members lived in Marl- boro and Wilmington, and after a short time this church was dis- solved, probably on account of the founding of churches more conveniently near some of the members. A Mr. Goodall, Con- gregational minister, came about the time that Elder Ewens left, and was settled and took up the ministerial lot. The Baptist remnant, however, were not wholly discouraged. Elder Littlefield, from Colerain, assisted and encouraged them until 1793. This year gave birth to the church, which still survives. A council was called by a number of brethren, Daniel Safford, Benjamin Wilcox, Joseph Worden, William Thomas, David Allen and others, and these were organized into a church. They settled Elder Abner Bemis, from Westminster, Mass., who was their pastor thirteen years, until his death. He is described in Scripture terms as a good man and full of the Holy Ghost, and many people were
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added to the Lord through his labors of love. There was a gradual increase during his ministry, and a great ingathering near its close.
Before his death a large meeting-house was erected near the center of the town, costing twelve hundred dollars. The first deacons were David Allen and Samuel Wood. Elder Bemis' death was due to a cancer on his lip, from which he had suffered with great patience and fortitude. He was invited to council with his brethren, when they were weighing the important question of his successor. They met at his residence to consider the matter prayerfully. With one or two exceptions, they were unanimous in accepting his choice of Elder Mansfield Bruce, a young brother, whom he had recently baptized. Just then Brother Bruce unex- pectedly entered the room. Father Bemis warmly grasped his hand and said "My son in the gospel, I leave you in charge of my sheep and my lambs; take good care of them." Already this young man had proved himself a workman that needeth not to be ashamed. This prayerful and evidently wise choice was defeated by the two dissenting members, who immediately wrote to Elisha Hall to visit them on trial. He received this as a unanimous call from the church, replying, "I have a peculiar regard for the church and am willing to cast in my lot with them, to live and die with them." He came, and to keep peace, the majority consented for a season. In a short time he scattered the flock. The church, however, survived this and other severe trials, and still lives and fills a place in the sisterhood of Baptist churches in Vermont.
That there was a Baptist church in Westminster West, about 1782, seems probable, from the fact that in 1784 over fifty inhabi- tants of the town entered their names in the clerk's office, under a certificate that they worshipped with the Baptists. Among these names were those of Deacon Benjamin Smith and Deacon Nathan- iel Robinson. Elder Oliver Gurnsey, who lived in the parish, and Elder Wellman, who lived in Brookline, were Baptist ministers, whose names appear often in the early history of the parish. It is said of them that they were uneducated men who scorned the need of preparation for preaching; who opened their mouths for the Lord to fill, and pitied the preacher that de- pended upon his manuscript.
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Baptists organized in Brookline, probably, in 1785. The first date on record is September 4, 1798, when a covenant was copied from an earlier one dated 1785, which was undoubtedly the time when the church was organized. We have no knowledge of what transpired for the first thirteen years. The records are meager and imperfect. This church belonged to the Leyden Association, till the time of the Windham Association, and never failed to make its annual report.
December 3, 1785, the first Baptist Church in Windsor was organized, and the following January, Roswell Smith was received with his gift from the church in Woodstock, and the next April, Mr. Smith was "called to the constant improvement of his gift, He being present, consented to it."
A providential event, of no small interest, was the coming of Aaron Leland to Chester, in 1786. He was destined to become the acknowledged leader and apostle of the churches in the Wood- stock Association, with the upbuilding of which he had much to do. The story of his coming is of special interest. In the winter of 1786, David Johnson, of Chester, Vt., was visiting friends in Holliston, Mass., and while there heard of young Leland, and from his friends received a very happy impression of him, and learned that he might possibly be inclined to go to Vermont. With this hope, Mr. Johnson returned home and talked with his friends about it, with this result, that fifteen citizens of Chester, none of them Baptists, signed a petition urgently inviting Mr. Leland to settle as their pastor. Influenced by this petition, and by a very friendly letter of Mr. Johnson accompanying it, Mr. Leland set out on the long journey and in due time reached Chester.
Upon reaching the place the young minister was disappointed. The country was not so well settled, nor the people so interesting as he had expected. He was troubled. The path of duty was not clear. He looked to the throne for guidance.
There is a tradition that the crisis came in the night. He was planning to return in the morning; but being unable to sleep. he arose, and went out of doors, and under an apple tree kneeled and prayed. And, while he prayed, the one who cheered the Apostle Paul at Corinth, seemed to speak to him in the same
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terms, "I have much people in this city." These words were so deeply impressed upon his mind that he decided upon Chester as his field of work. He returned to his home in Holliston, for a few months, and then came back to Chester to begin his life work.
Two years later, August 10, 1789, he had the satisfaction of seeing a little church of ten members recognized by an ecclesiasti- cal council called for that purpose. At the end of five years the church numbered fifty members. Five years later it reported one hundred and forty-two members. In 1799, a precious revival began, and in four years one hundred and eighty-six were added to the church by baptism.
The labors of this apostolic preacher at this time were arduous in the extreme. He scoured the country for miles around, seeking converts, and encouraging christians, and organizing them into churches. Through a forest path he reached Jamaica, twenty miles away, and worked with that people and organized a church there. The records of the town of Rockingham show that he was the recognized shepherd of the Baptists of that town. At Cavendish, Andover, Grafton and Springfield, he visited and gathered converts into the Chester church. At Londonderry he preached in a saw mill. Members from these distant places were received as branches of the Chester church, and were encouraged with the assurance that, as soon as they had reached the member- ship of twelve, they might, if they wished, be organized as inde- pendent churches. This is a matter of record concerning the Cavendish church, and of natural inference concerning the rest. The time came when this assurance was fulfilled. On the 31st of August, just fourteen years after the organization of the Chester church, an ecclesiastical council was convened and, with the happiest of feelings, four churches were set off from the Chester church to begin their independent life. These were the Baptist churches of Cavendish, North Springfield, Andover and Grafton. The membership of the parent church was suddenly reduced from two hundred and fifty-three to seventy-nine. A rare record this, four churches set off in one day from a mother church.
This family of churches have lived in happiest relationship for more than a century, and in fellowship with the churches of the Woodstock Association.
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November 12, 1787, a church was formed in Putney, under the ministry of David Johnson, (doubtless the same man, who was instrumental in bringing Elder Leland to Chester).
In 1790, a church was gathered in Jamaica by Elder Aaron Leland; Calvin Howard, the first convert to Baptist principles in Jamaica, was chosen deacon. Though without a regular preacher, and dependent upon transient supplies, this church prospered, and in October of this year, it sent out a colony, when the church in West Wardsboro was organized. Elder Leland was instrumental in gathering this church also. In 1796, a branch of this church was established in West Townshend, which became an independent body in 1810 and was extinct in 1845.
A few converts had been gathered in Wardsboro as early as 1792. Then came Aaron Leland, and preached and baptized six more, and in October of that year (1792), these were organized into a Baptist church, by the advice of a council of five, in which Leland was the only minister.
On the twenty-fourth of October, 1794, twenty-two members of the Dummerston church were dismissed that they might form a church in Marlboro, to be called the Marlboro and Newfane church. Fifteen of these were men and seven women. On the twenty-ninth of the same month they were recognized by a council, and John Phillips was chosen clerk, a position which he held for more than forty years. This is all that can be gathered of the history of this church for the first six years, the records being lost.
Herron Leland
REV. AARON LELAND Lieutenant Governor of Vermont, 1822-1824 Founder and pastor of Chester Baptist Church 1786-1832 Born, 1761-Died, 1832
CHAPTER XIII
THE WINDHAM COUNTY ASSOCIATION
The Windham County Association was originally organized under the name of the Leyden Association, taking its name from the place where it was formed, in 1793. Although organized in Massachusetts, and composed partly of churches in that State, it was recognized as a Vermont Association, the majority of its churches being in Vermont.
In 1796, it numbered fourteen churches and eight hundred and seventy-seven members, with ten ordained ministers. The Vermont churches were the First, Second and Fourth Guilford churches, Dummerston, Somerset, Putney, Halifax, Marlboro and Newfane.
For a period of forty-two years the Association, under its original name, worked along practically the same lines as its sister Associations. Its first organized mission work was that of provid- ing, through its settled pastors, for the supply of pastorless churches, at least a few Sundays in each year.
As early as 1806, it recognized the claims of foreign missions, and appointed a committee to receive and transmit to the Massa- chusetts Baptist Missionary Society such sums as should be con- tributed for missions, and from that time, annually, contributions were made for this object.
The session in 1809, closed under the depressing and alarming prospect of the want of bread in this part of the country, and the last Thursday in December was commended to the churches as a day of fasting and prayer. The Vermont Association took like action for the same reason. The records of the next session make no reference to this threatened distress. On the margin of a copy of the minutes for 1810, is penned this note, "Most of the ministers of this Association are in good circumstances for living, some of them are wealthy. All the churches in this Association which are in Vermont are in Windham County."
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The session of 1811 was rendered exceptionally impressive by the Association assuming, by request, the function of a council, and ordaining to the "Evangelic Ministry, " Nathaniel Rice.
The constitution of their missionary society was published that year. The membership of the society was limited to persons contributing to its treasury at least one dollar.
The object of the society was declared to be, to furnish occasional preaching, and to promote the knowledge of evangelic truth in the new settlements within the United States, or farther, if circumstances should require.
The only record of any mission at a distance is that of 1824, when Brother J. Parsons was employed as missionary for ten weeks in Pennsylvania.
The letter of Luther Rice, in 1814, roused the members of this Association, as it did the other Associations, to a more active in- terest in foreign missions, and a standing secretary of the Associa- tion was appointed to hold correspondence with the correspond- ing secretary of the Baptist Board of Foreign Missions.
In 1818, Elder Going was present, and was specially helpful in organizing an education society of twenty-four members. Later, 1830, the organization of a Vermont Branch of the Northern Bap- tist Education Society was cordially recommended.
A number of beneficiaries received the assistance of this as- sociational educational society, among them Jeremiah Hall, J. M. Graves, Wm. Metcalf, Bela Wilcox and M. McCullar.
Exceptional recommendations of the Association were these, (1823): Voted that instead of Rev. we insert in our minutes Eld., as the appellation for ministers. (1833) Resolved that we recom- mend the discontinuance of the practice of wearing mourning apparel.
This Association voiced its sentiments on the subject of tem- perance somewhat conservatively, and its successive resolutions indicate steady growth of conviction, expressing itself in stronger and stronger declaration.
Its first resolution was in 1827, "Resolved, that we abstain from the use of spirituous liquor on ordinary occasions, and withhold it from visiting parties, and from our workmen." In 1828, "Re-
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solved, that we recommend to our churches to abstain from the use of spirituous liquors, except as prescribed by physicians as a medicine." 1829, "The Committee of Temperance, considering the vast and awful ravages which the use of ardent spirits is making upon the morals of society, the peace of families, and in- dividual happiness-Would report, as christians, it is our duty to exert all our influence to stem the desolating flood. Whatever we may think of the lawfulness of a moderate use of this kind of stim- ulant; yet, indulgence in christians has a baleful influence on society. Hence christian benevolence requires entire abstinence. Resolved, therefore, that we will totally abstain from the use of ardent spirits, and use our influence to induce others to do so, too." From this strong position the Association never retreated, but frequently reiterated its strong protest against the iniquitous traffic and destructive indulgence.
In 1824, the Association numbered twenty-eight churches, six of which being located in Massachusetts, east of the Connecticut River, were dismissed to form the Wendell Association. In 1830, all the remaining churches belonging to Massachusetts were dis- missed to form the Franklin County Association, leaving twelve churches belonging to Vermont, which, in 1835, assumed the name of the Windham County Association. Rev. Mansfield Bruce was moderator, and Amherst Lamb, the year when the new name was given.
The churches then associated with the membership of each were as follows: Putney, fifty-six; Halifax, one hundred and fifty- four; Marlboro and Newfane, one hundred and fifty ; Dummerston, one hundred and sixteen; Guilford, one hundred and thirteen; Brookline, eighty-nine; Wilmington, ninety-five; Wardsboro, forty- four; Whitingham, seventy-five; Dover, thirty-six; Stratton, forty-one; Readsboro, thirty-seven. Total membership, one thou- sand and six.
The ordained ministers were: Samuel Fish, Putney; P. Howe, Marlboro and Newfane; J. Packer, Dummerston; A. B. Eggleston, Benjamin Buckstin, Guilford; Mansfield Bruce, Wilmington; Am- herst Lamb, Whitingham; James Carpenter, Readsboro.
The Windham Association has been a harmonious and stable body of churches, subject to comparatively few changes, and sel-
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dom disturbed by serious difficulties. Two only of the original churches have become extinct, the Somerset and the Readsboro. The extinction of the Readsboro church was not permanent, and it has been reorganized and is living a prosperous and influential life, while the remnants of the old Somerset church were gathered into the Dover church.
But few churches have been added to the original number. Jamaica, in 1838; Brattleboro, in 1840; Townshend, in 1856; West Brattleboro, in 1874; and Heartwellville, in 1907. In 1910, there were in the Association seventeen churches, fifteen pastors, one thousand and thirty-nine resident members, one thousand, three hundred and eighty-six total membership, and the benevolent contributions reported that year were $2848.00.
This body at its first session, under the name of The Windham Association, became an auxiliary of the Baptist General Tract Society, for the circulation of its literature; every subscriber being entitled to one-half his subscription in tracts, at a cost of one cent for fifteen pages of tracts. Rev. Amherst Lamb was appointed agent and depositary for this work.
At this first session, interest was shown in Sunday school work, a feature which has been conspicuous in this Association ever since. Ziba Howard and Amherst Lamb were chosen to present in every church (by exchange or otherwise) the subject of the Sunday school, and to excite a deeper interest in this institution. In 1847, an As- sociational Sunday School Convention was proposed and soon was made a permanent organization, holding its meetings annually in June, and attended with real interest. June 1, 1910, this Conven- tion held its fifty-seventh annual meeting in Readsboro.
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