USA > Vermont > Bennington County > Bennington > Memorials of a century. Embracing a record of individuals and events, chiefly in the early history of Bennington, Vt., and its First church > Part 8
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4 By Xirs. Darius Clark.
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MEMORIALS OF A CENTURY.
marked signs of pleasure, "Nobody preached ; Mr. Clark talked to us." Mr. Clark had preached a sermon to chil- dren, and they, in their interest in what he said, forgot that it was a sermon.
The well-aimed labors of his predecessor, Mr. Peters, it is evident, had not wholly eradicated public sin from the community. A travelling theatre advertised to visit Ben- nington ; and the young men, some of whom knew better, had become committed to sustain the affair, and were quite determined to brave the opposition to it among good men. One of them, since a judge upon the bench of the Supreme Court in this State, has described the appearance of Mr. Clark when he entered upon the introductory exercises of the pulpit next Sabbath morning. There was a peculiar nervous excitement, and twitching of his countenance, and animation of his whole frame, which led his audience to anticipate what was coming. He preached two discourses that day, which made those respectable young men who had pledged their patronage to the travelling theatre wish they had taken a sober second thought before doing so.
Among outlines of discourses in his published works is one on the sinner's desperate depravity. The text is Jere- miah iii. 5 : "Thou hast spoken and done evil things, as thou couldst." The discourse is thus introduced : " This passage evidently teaches the doctrine that men are as depraved as they can be in present circumstances." The large compara- tive number of additions to the church during his brief min- istry here - one hundred and twenty-six in four years and four months - and, it may be added, the powerful revival which occurred here the next year after his dismission, must have been due, in no small degree, to the divine bless- ing upon his faithful preaching of the doctrine of man's sinfulness, and dependence upon the sovereign mercy of God. Revivals attended and followed his labors elsewhere.
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MR. CLARK'S TEMPERANCE LABORS.
It was a time of powerful revivals in the country at large. It was a blessed time, indeed, in which to be an eminently talented and qualified preacher of the gospel, and in the prime of one's great physical and intellectual strength.
Mr. Clark aimed deadly blows at intemperance, Sabbath- breaking, dancing, card-playing, covetousness. If there was an infidel-club in the town, he discovered it, and poured his hottest fire into it. Like Samson, he was willing to pull down the temple of Dagon upon himself as well as the Philistines, if, otherwise, he could not destroy them. The temperance reformation had just commenced in the country at the time Mr. Clark was settled here, and he threw himself, with his accustomed ardor, into that move- ment. He began here by proposing to individuals to sign a pledge that they would, at the end of the year, report faithfully what amount of distilled liquor had been used in the family during the year. Many signers were obtained. Among the number, eight reported at the year's end they had used none; others reported the quantity they had used. We are amused at the report of one, whose figures went as high as ten gallons ; he said it was for bathing purposes. At the time of the second annual report of this association it was resolved to practise total abstinence from distilled spirit. That was some years before the tem- perance reformation advanced to the point of abstinence from all intoxicating drinks. There were some earnest ones, who, at that meeting, anticipated the subsequent movement, and took a position in favor of including wine, beer, and cider, in the pledge. Mr. Clark thought it not then expedient, and reasoned as follows : "If wolves and bears were coming down in fury from your mountain sides to devour your flocks, would you stop to hunt out the rats and mice ?"
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MEMORIALS OF A CENTURY.
Many were the large orchards in that day ; and cider- mills, from early autumn until late in the winter, were busy night and day. And distilleries were not deficient, to which the hogsheads and barrels from the cider-press were constantly borne. These orchards were many of them cut down, under the powerful impulse of the temper- ance reformation. Mr. Clark also sought the promotion of intellectual improvement in schools, lyceums, and espe- cially in the study of the word of God. The whole con- gregation was, at that time, engaged in Bible-class and Sabbath-school study during the intermission. His own success in preaching, and the great and multiplied revivals of those times, times in which Bible societies, Missionary societies, Temperance societies, and Sabbath schools were springing up as if by magic, on every hand, fired his ex- pectations of the speedy advent of the millennium, and stimulated his ardor to the highest pitch. Every man here almost was a representative man. All were accustomed to move on in their purposes with more than ordinary energy and persistency of will. There were, nevertheless, leading spirits.
This place was, at that time, the scene of a remarkable competition between two rival seminaries of learning. The impulse of this competition drew crowds here from abroad to both schools ; among them many talented youth. Ben- nington had once more become famous far and wide ; and the Rev. Daniel A. Clark, was, for the time, among other noted ones, the most noted personage.
After all that has been said of Mr. Clark, in this short notice, it will not give surprise if it is added that he aroused much opposition against himself. His preaching and labors were the occasion of not a few in the commu- nity being " set at variance " (see Matt. x. 34, 35), not only from him but also from one another.
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THE VERDICT OF TIME.
Abruptness and severity of dealing with ungodly men was not unknown to the preaching of those times ; and Mr. Clark, self-trained to great terseness of expression, and by nature intense, sometimes manifested the fierceness of the lion rather than the gentleness of the lamb. The following incident, occurring in Amherst, Mass., was related to the writer of these sketches.' It is easy to believe such a story would lose nothing by repetition in passing through lips unfriendly to Mr. Clark ; still it is deemed proper to be given here as an illustration of the impression some of his labors made upon a portion of the community. Ve- hement controversy between two persons in a blacksmith's shop was overheard by another person, sitting in the open chamber-window of an adjoining house ; and the person, thus an involuntary listener, went down to ascer- tain more definitely the character of the dispute, and found the two parties were the blacksmith, a profane man, and the Rev. Mr. Clark. Mr. Clark said to the black- smith, " You will be damned if you do not repent." The blacksmith, enraged, with so personal and severe an ap- plication of the gospel warning, retorted upon Mr. Clark the same threatening, in similar language, though with probably more of it. The listening party returned to the house, and said, " The other man, no doubt, was swear- ing, and he should have said Mr. Clark was, also, if he had not known who he was."
One of his successors in the pulpit of the Amherst church, speaking of Mr. Clark to the writer, said, "He was a preacher of magnificent sermons ; but he knew not how to take the kinks out of a Yankee's brain." It would seem, however, that he knew how to take out the self-conceit, and some of the delusions out of the sinner's heart. It may be said, too, that, as time wears on, the words of censure of Mr. Clark become infrequent and faint, and his admirers
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MEMORIALS OF A CENTURY.
speak their warm praises, with few, if any, to call in ques- tion the fitness of the eulogy.
There was noticeable in him, as the infirmities of disease and a disabled frame gathered upon him, a rare childlike- ness and humility.
He deceased at sixty-one years of age ; but his remark- able powers began to give way under the influence of dis- ease some eight years previously ; so that his ministry in Adams, N. Y., where he was last installed, continued little over a year. "From that time he failed gradually, till God called him home." His disease was one of rare occurrence, - the ossification of the arteries of the brain.
He was married June, 1812, at Portland, Maine, to Miss Eliza Barker, daughter of Dr. Jeremiah Barker, of Gorham. The offspring of this marriage are, James Henry Clark, M.D., Hon. Horace F. Clark, LL.D., Rev. Frederic G. Clark, D.D., Edward Clark, Esq., Mary, wife of Rev. Livingston Willard, and Sereno Clark.
VII. THE REV. EDWARD WILLIAM HOOKER, D.D., was born in Goshen, Conn., Nov. 24, 1794. By his paternal ancestry, he traces his descent back (seven or eight gener- ations) to the Rev. Thomas Hooker, that "light of the New England churches, and oracle of the colony of Con- necticut ;" the Puritan father, who, with others of like re- ligious character and aims, came to this country from Eng- land in 1633 ; first settled at Newtown, now Cambridge, Mass. ; and in 1636 removed to Hartford, Conn., and was one of the founders of the first Connecticut churches, and pastor of the first church in Connecticut, that now the First Congregational Church of Hartford.1 By his maternal an-
1 In the life of Thomas Hooker (by Dr. Hooker), in the Appendix, are the names of forty-two ministers of the gospel descended from him, and of forty-one mar- ried to his female descendants, - among them some of the brightest lights of the American pulpit.
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LABORS OF DR. HOOKER.
cestry, Dr. Hooker is descended from the Elder President Jonathan Edwards.
Dr. Hooker was fitted for college at Goshen Academy, and Addison County Grammar School ; graduated at Mid- dlebury College in 1814; studied theology at Andover 1814-18; was pastor of the Congregational Church in Green's Farms, Fairfield, Conn., 1821-29 ; associate gen- eral agent of the American Temperance Society, and editor of the "Journal of Humanity," 1829-31; pastor of the First Church in Bennington, 1832-44 ; Professor of Sacred Rhetoric and Ecclesiastical History in the Theological In- stitute of Connecticut, at East Windsor, 1844-48 ; pastor of the Congregational Church, South Windsor, Conn., 1848- (the date to which is not given) ; pastor in Fair Haven, Vt., 1856-62 ; since which time he has resided with his son, Rev. E. C. Hooker, at Newburyport, Mass., and at Nashua, N. H.
Dr. Hooker has published several sermons and pam- phlets, and, at least, two thiek volumes, - one the life of Thomas Hooker, the other memoirs of Mrs. Sarah Lanman Smith, and has also contributed, with more or less fre- quency, articles to the periodical press. With an intellect of superior excellence, having extensive knowledge of men and individuals at home and abroad, and wielding a racy and vigorou's pen, he has possessed peculiar talents for writing for the press. But his heart has ever clung to the preaching of " the glorious gospel of the blessed God" as his great life-work. Loving the evangelical and Calvinistic doctrines, and zealous for the faith once delivered to the saints, he has uttered no uncertain sound, and occupied no doubtful position as a preacher of Christ and him crucified. And a life-long example of high-toned Christian courtesy and conscientious Christian circumspection has added weight to his words.
His was one of the longer of the Bennington pastorates, -
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MEMORIALS OF A CENTURY.
twelve and a half years ; and probably none of the ex-pastors of this parish have gone away with warmer attachment to them of families left behind than has continued to exist be- tween the Rev. Dr. Hooker and some families of his old Ben- nington pastorate. Many were added to the church during his ministry here; one year -that of 1834- the number rose as high as ninety. He was here in an important period of the history of the church and the town, and enjoyed rela- tions of mutual respect and friendly intercourse with leading members of the church and community, and is therefore eminently fitted to furnish valuable reminiscences of the times of his residence here; and it is hoped he will not fail to do so.
His first wife was Miss Faith Trumbull Huntington, of Norwich, Conn., daughter of Jabez Huntington, Esq., and grand-daughter of Gen. Jedidiah Huntington, of New Lon- don, Conn. ; and, on her mother's side, in the line of the Trumbull family, tracing her ancestry back to William Robinson, who came from England to Dorchester, Mass., in 1641, and is believed to be a descendant of the vener- able Puritan, John Robinson, of Leyden.
The children of this marriage are : Mary Lanman, wife of the Rev. Anson Clark ; Faith Huntington, wife of the Rev. E. J. Montague ; Elizabeth Peck, deceased in 1841, at the age of twenty-two, - all of whom became members of the Bennington church ; the Rev. Elias Cornelius Hook- er, Miss Sarah Huntington Hooker, and the Rev. Edward Trumbull Hooker, - these last three, natives of Ben- nington.
Dr. Hooker's second wife was Mrs. Elizabeth Shelden Lyman, of Troy, New York, sister-in-law of our Deacon George Lyman ; she died in Fairhaven, Vermont, in 1856. His present wife was Miss Lucy Bagley, of Newburyport, Massachusetts.
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OTHER BENNINGTON PASTORS.
NOTE. - In introducing notices of two living pastors, the writer has felt he was executing a delicate task. He would not have done so but for the fact that the lapse of years has already separated their labors in Bennington to quite a distance from the present. With regard to the remaining ex-pastors of this church, and the pastors of the other churches in the town, the time of their labors here falling into the more recent past, is the writer's apology for omitting any other than the briefest statistical mention of them, which will be found elsewhere.
CHAPTER IX.
TRANSIENT MINISTERS.
HE REV. MR. BURTON. - In the interval be- tween the pastorates of the Rev. Mr. Avery and the Rev. Job Swift, D.D., there was a revival un- der the labors of the Rev. Messrs. Wood and Bur- ton. It is believed, though upon what evidence can scarcely be stated, that the Mr. Burton was the Rev. Asa Burton, afterward distinguished as the Rev. Dr. Burton, of Thetford, in this State, author of the "Taste Scheme in Divinity," and instructor of many students in theology. He was at that time the young pastor of Thet- ford. He was a close reasoner, and a difficult antagonist in controversy. The following characteristic anecdote has been told of him. Some people, called Christ-ians, set up a Sabbath evening meeting in a school-house in one corner of his parish, the town of Thetford, and it was the custom of their preacher to give opportunity after his sermon to any who might desire it to ask questions. These new-comers were esteemed to be not sound in divinity. Dr. Burton thought it his duty to attend their meetings and hear for himself. He did so, and when the opportunity was given to ask questions, he plied the stranger with such diffi- cult ones as caused him to cease holding any more meetings in that town.
FATHER MARSHALL has already been mentioned as a Con- necticut Separate pastor, who was accustomed frequently to
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ANECDOTES OF FATHER MARSHALL.
pass this way. He is described as possessing ardent piety, but marked by eccentricity. A biographical sketch of him in the "Vermont Evangelical Magazine " for July, August, 1815, contains a graphic account in brief of his character and life ; also affords a glimpse of the Separates of Father Marshall's time. He was, when a lad, brought under deep conviction of sin, which ofttimes returned upon him with great power after he obtained a Christian hope. His zeal in warning the impenitent and the lukewarm would brook no restraints, whether as an exhorter, being yet a stripling, or as a Separate minister, which he became a considerable time before his twentieth year. For violating the new laws against exhorting in other ministers' parishes, or the preva- lent notions of propriety, - exhorting in season and out of season, - he was arrested, tried, set in the stocks, bound Sut to a farmer two months to pay the costs of prosecution ; tried again, and for a time confined in Hartford jail. He was twice settled, -his longest pastorate being over the Separate church in Canterbury, Conn. When nearly seventy years of age he removed to Starksborough, in this State. He preached temporarily in Weybridge, Hinesburgh, and Westfield. " When at home he regularly preached to the people in Star ksborough until it became impossible for him to do so any longer because of the infirmities of advanced age. He often performed the devotional part of public worship until within a few weeks of his death, which took place at Starksborough Feb. 20, 1813, in the eighty-second year of his age.
Many anecdotes are told of him, of which three or four shall be given here. He tried for a time to conform to the demand for written sermons, but did so with an ill grace. On one occasion his little notes had got forward gradually to the outer edge of the pulpit-desk until they slipped off. He started back, and said, " There, go with your fetters !"
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MEMORIALS OF A CENTURY.
Once preaching here with great earnestness, he cried out, " Where is Governor Moses Robinson's piety, and where is old Esquire Samuel Robinson's piety ?" - meaning, Is their piety reproduced in those who ought to imitate their good examples? At another time preaching here, he looked out of the window which was back of the pulpit and saw men harvesting grain on the Sabbath. The subject of his dis- course was, "The Claims of God." Pointing backward to the men in the field, he said, " Bennington sinners can trust God to send them rain and sunshine, and ripen their crops for them ; but they cannot trust him, after the grain is ripe, to keep it for them twenty-four hours while they shall keep the Sabbath for him." Once when he was a guest at the elder Mrs. Samuel Robinson's, she lamented to him the loss of some religious privilege, occasioned by their removing from Massachusetts to this then wilderness. Father Mar- shall remembered her state of mind, with his wonted par- ticularity, in his prayer at family worship, " that she might have grace to be more thankful for the mercies she still enjoyed, and not hanker so much for the flesh-pots of Egypt." It is related that she was never again heard to complain in that manner.
There is an anecdote relating to the " Oracle's of Reason," an atheistical book of Ethan Allen, - the edition of which was consumed in the burning of the printing-office, - which has been, and not without appearance of truth, ascribed to Mr. Marshall. He was, so it is related, a guest for the night of Ethan Allen, and in the morning was duly called upon to attend prayers in the family. Such were the cus- toms of hospitality of the place in those days. Col. Allen handed him his " Oracles of Reason," saying, " This is my bible. I suppose you have no objections to read out of my bible." His reverend guest replied, "Let us sing a few verses first ; have you any objection to the common psalm-
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REV. JOSHUA SPAULDING.
book ?"-"Not at all," said the host. Mr. Marshall, taking up the psalm-book which lay upon the table, select- ed, and proceeded to read, the psalm commencing with this stanza : -
" Let all the heathen writers join To form one perfect book, - Great God, if once compared with thine, How mean their writings look !"
Allen, who, notwithstanding his infidelity, was charac- terized by great cordiality and frankness, interrupted him, and said, "Floored, Father Marshall ; take your own Bible."
Father Marshall would be requested sometimes by the Baptists, when they were without a supply, to preach for them, and even to administer the communion, though it -was not expected that he would himself commune. On one a ich occasion, a piece of the bread fell from the table to sunil floor ; he picked it up, and ate it, saying, "The dogs the shif the crumbs that fall from the master's table."
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THE RA EV. JOSHUA SPAULDING. - At a society's meeting, Dec. 13, 18. no04, a call was voted to the Rev. J. Spaulding, and a commiti tee appointed to wait on him and inform him of the same. h.Tis answer is not on record. He was never settled here. He hard preached here, it is said, for a year or more, just previously. This was immediately subse- quent to his dismissal from the _Tabernacle Church, in Sa- lem, Mass., April 23, 1802,1 and prior to his settlement over the Branch (now Howard Street) Church, in the same city. He was here during the revival of 1.802-3. He is stated to have said that he had had a part in foraty revivals.
1 A printed farewell discourse of his, delivered at Salem, Mass., is advertised for sale in the " Vermont Gazette " of that day.
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MEMORIALS OF A CENTURY.
He was in the early part of his ministry styled a New-Light preacher. A two-volume treatise of his on Divinity is in print ; also lectures on the coming of the Kingdom of Christ. He also compiled a hymn-book, which was published at Salem soon after his visit to this place. He was a mil- lenarian. An interesting manuscript correspondence has been preserved, and is in the possession of G. W. Robin- son, between Mr. Spaulding and others, and also between him and Judge Jonathan Robinson, on the second coming of Christ.1 He was blessed greatly as pastor in building up the Tabernacle Church in Salem, and in promoting purity of church discipline and spirituality.2
He preached with great warmth and power. In Miss Read's narrative, as before noticed, after speaking of his singular unction, and elevation of countenance and manner in illustrating the righteousness of Christ, so as to bring forcibly to her mind the text, "How beautiful upon the
e mountains," etc., she says, upon a subsequent page, "T; Erne next day Mr. Spaulding preached in a most terrific Iz Enan- ner. He showed forth the terribleness of Christ's co. oming to judgment, and treated of the confusion and dis Smay of his enemies at his glorious appearing."
He was a democrat in politics, and accustom ded to speak and write his political sentiments with thees
ness and freedom that he did those of diver same pointed-
Mr. Spaulding, while here, with hints vinity.3 ·
all the family he had at the timesfr- is daughter, which was hospitality of Capt. Elijaore, enjoyed the large-hearted „ah Dewey.
1 There appears to have }" re been a considerable interest here and in the vicinity, in those times, in the :{ Scripture prophecies. A printed sermon is at hand, by the Rev. John Grist: &wold, pastor of the church in Pawlet, preached in 1804, and published at R: Kennington (Haswell and Smead), from Rev. xi. 10, taking the view that the He " two witnesses " signified the two offices of the magistracy and the minis'. stry.
A discourse on the First Centennial of the Tabernacle Church, Salem, Mass., by Samuel M. Worcester, M.A., pastor of the church.
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REV. JEDIDIAH BUSHNELL.
THE REV. JEDIDIAH BUSHNELL is remembered, by some of the old inhabitants in this town, as a Vermont minister, quaint, but able, and very much respected, and very use- ful. He was a classmate in Williams College, of David Robinson, Jr., Esq., and visited him while travelling through this part of the country with an invalid son. Returning home, and gratefully remembering the hospital- ity of his friend and classmate, he wrote an affectionate and faithful letter to Capt. Robinson, on the subject of his personal salvation. Capt. Robinson always esteemed this letter as a true expression of friendship, and a beautiful act of Christian fidelity, and to his dying day used to show the letter. It was, some few years since, at his request, printed in the " Vermont Chronicle." The following anec- dote of Father Bushnell used to be related by the Rev. N. Hewitt, D.D., of Bridgeport, Conn. Mr. Hewitt, then a young preacher, happened, with his wife and first-born child, then an infant, to be in the company of Father Bushnell, who kindly noticed the child. Mrs. Hewitt made the remark, " Mr. Bushnell, I am afraid I shall love this child too much."
" No! no ! madam," said Father Bushnell, "you can- not love it too much, if you will only love God a great deal more."
A recipe, that he once gave to Mr. and Mrs. P. M. Henry, at the outset of their married life, is worth pre- serving ; it is as follows : -
"To Mrs. Henry. - ' Do you wish to know how to make Mr. Henry to be a good husband ?'
" ' Yes.'
" ' Be a good wife.'
" To Mr. Henry. - ' Do you wish to know how to make Mrs. Henry to be a good wife ?'
"' ' Yes.'
" ' Be a good husband.'"
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MEMORIALS OF A CENTURY.
THE REV. LEMUEL HAYNES, the noted colored preacher, has been mentioned in the biographical notice of the Rev. Job Swift, D.D., as in that day one of the ministers of this region. It is related of him that, while a pastor in Man- chester, he was called to preach a funeral sermon in this town, and introduced the sermon by saying, " If my hear- ers expect me to dwell upon the faults of the deceased, they will be disappointed ; and if they expect me to dwell upon the virtues of the deceased, they will be, disap- pointed ; for I am not here to preach to the dead, but to the living."
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