Working Long Toward Grace Above: Trinity Parish’s Story Its Faith Acceptance Ordeal 1614 - 1800 Complied and Written by David K. Sturges 1

Connecticut as it appeared to European New World settlers. Shown with locations of Indian Tribes. (Courtesy DeForest, History of the Indians of Connecticut 1854, David K. Sturges)

COVER: Trinity Parish’s original meeting house, 1725 is shown (top) with founding Anglican priests Missioner Rev. Samuel Johnson and first Rector, the Rev. Henry Caner. (Bottom) its second church built near the Town center green, later burned in the British raid in 1779. Shown with Third Rector, the Rev. John Sayre and succeeding Fourth Rector, the Rev. Philo Shelton following the Revolution (Courtesy Morgan, History of Connecticut As Colony and State and Guilbert, Annals of a Country Parish). 2

A FAITH ACCEPTANCE ORDEAL ANGLICAN ESTABLISHMENT IN COLONIAL FAIRFIELD AND THE FOUNDING OF TRINITY PARISH 1614-1800 by David K. Sturges

Trinity Parish’s nearly 300 year history has “back story”, with roots in the early to mid 17th century, when the Connecticut area, particularly its Long Island Sound shoreline, became violently contested between the Dutch and the English. Their objectives were sovereign control of its land and waterways, in their competitive colonization of the New World. In between them, as trade and military pawns, were the Native American Indian tribes, predominantly the Pequots. The motivations of both nations were rooted in both religious and economic interests as they formed their settlements out of the wilderness. The religious was a six-way split influence between Catholic, Anglican and Puritan/Separatist, Calvinist, Quaker and Methodist, evolving from the Reformation. The economic was the mercantile, one-way gain of homeland riches, characteristic of that time, in the form of furs, tobacco and other crops.

The Struggle For Geopolitical Control From 1611 to 1614, the Dutch first explored Long Island Sound and its rivers leading to the formation of the New Netherland Group by Amsterdam investors and exploring traders. One of these, a Dutch mariner, Capt. Adriaen Block, first cruised the area south of Cape Cod, inshore of Long Island to the Hudson River, trading with the Indians and gaining nearly a full cargo of furs, when his ship caught fire and burned to its waterline. As historian, Charles Coffin, recounted, “Captain Block was not a man to sit down and wring his hands over his loss, but built a log house for his crew and set them to work with such tools as they had, to construct another vessel and soon had it ready for sea. It was only 16 tons burden. He called it “Onrust” or “Restless”. The tide and wind swept it up the Sound as far as the Connecticut River and it was the first white sail ever seen by the Pequots who gazed upon it from the hills along the shore. Captain Block steered out toward the island, known to the Indians as “Manissis, but which now bears his name. When he eventually Marooned Dutch explorer, Captain Adriaen Block and his crew reached Nahant, along the Cape shore, he fell in shown building their relief vessel “Onrust” on the shores of Long with another larger Dutch vessel. They Island Sound, 1614. Courtesy, Coffin, Old Times in the Colonies, exchanged command of both and Block David K. Sturges) eventually made it back to Holland. 3 In Amsterdam, Block’s venture came to the attention of John of Barneveld, Calvinist founder of the Dutch Republic and leader of the Council of State. It was through him and his wealthy burghers that English Separatists later gained resources to cross the Atlantic and establish the Plymouth Colony in 1620. Within the Dutch Republic, citizens could be either Catholic or different branch Protestant as they wished, and this liberal faith policy spelled opportunity to join peaceful trade and colonial presence in competition with the Catholic Spanish, French and the Anglican English. John of Barneveld encouraged exploration and national claim to the area between the Delaware River and Buzzards Bay, based on increasing fur trade yield from the Indian tribes. The diplomatic situation was soon to change. In 1621, Dutch Peace Treaty with Spain ended and prompted the creation of the Dutch West India Company to protect the new towns of Nassau (Albany), New Amsterdam (New York) and Good Hope (Hartford). At first, rules were published by the Company to align individual trader conduct with peace and prosperity contact with native tribes under the sway of the Pequot Grand Sachem, Wopigwooit. To keep the fur yield expanding with possibilities of land deeds, gifts of “wampum” (European goods) were exchanged. This trade enriched the Pequots along the southern New coast. The only hard edge to this equanimical “Dutch way” was slavery, since manpower was vitally needed to build settlements with wharves and shipping facilities and owner households. The first area import of slaves were eleven black African men to New Amsterdam (New York) in 1626. The English took up the same practice on a larger, meaner scale with both Indians and black Africans. Meanwhile, in , the English had established the Plymouth Plantation and with Puritanism the driving ecclesiastical spirit. Density around , political and religious discord and territorial expansion turned ambitious eyes to the Connecticut River Valley, with its rich soil and prime fields for tobacco farming, as well as the Sound for seaport Calvinist founder and State Council Leader of Dutch Re- location. The Pequots, Narragansett and other tribes, public, John of Barneveld. (Courtesy Coffin, Old Times in enjoying the Dutch trade monopoly, initially the Colonies, David K. Sturges) encouraged them, but once the real motive of land acquisition became apparent to them, they fell between Dutch and British aims for area colonial annexation. In addition, their populations were struck down by Small Pox and other European-spread diseases. By 1632, Anglican King, Charles I, signed his own maritime treaty with Spain, ending British de facto support of the Dutch Republic. As a result, the conflict for Connecticut deepened, with the Indians having to challenge both European powers as their expeditionary forces clashed along the river. As new research by Professor Kevin McBride and State Archaeologist, Brian Jones, has revealed: this the Pequots did from 1634 to 1637. As military pawns, they became adept at not only shore fighting but also on the waters of the Sound as small craft defensive partners, with their knowledge of the rivers and harbors. For three years, they engaged the British and the Dutch in guerilla combat raids, armed with brass arrowheads and metal arms repurposed from wampum objects trade acquired from the Dutch.

4 Brass arrowheads and metal tools and weapons the Pequots made from European trade wampum. These shown were re- cently collected in Pequot Museum’s American Battlefield Preservation archaeologic digs. They were used against the English during the Pequot War 1637 (below) (Courtesy Kevin McBride, CT Explored Magazine, Morgan History of Con- necticut.)

At this Pequot War’s conclusion in 1637, the British expeditionary forces of Massachusetts Bay gained the upper military hand and the tribes were effectively neutralized. Yet for the next 13 years, the Dutch stubbornly held on to the river and their Good Hope fortress (Hartford) until it fell without a fight in 1653. They slowly retreated from Connecticut and by treaty, re-set their border fifty miles further west, at the Hudson River. Expansion of Massachusetts Bay Colony into Connecticut: The conflict among Anglican authority and diverging Puritan faith of settlers. By the 1630’s, the creation of the Massachusetts Bay Company Colony enveloped the Plymouth Separatist Colony which had been originally recognized by King James I with license and crown seal. At home, King James, then, following his death in 1625, King Charles I, sought to re-assert Church of England faith against the 5 and conveniently banished them abroad and used their determination of independent worship to advance British occupation of together with Anglican settlement of Virginia and the south. Crown charter and claim license went with each. As the population of eastern Massachusetts swelled, the exiled Puritan faith coalesced into strict conformity among the colonial leadership. This bothered “non-conformist divines” as they were known among them. These people renounced this fealty to the Bay faith practices and sought to settle elsewhere. The Connecticut territory, now under British control, attracted them. The most influential was Thomas Hooker. As described by Forrest Morgan in his History of Connecticut as a Colony and State, Hooker was “a powerful, extemporaneous orator, an eloquent expounder of the Bible. Scholars and other prominent men yielded to the fascination of the beauty, power and appropriateness of his language.” Educated at Cambridge and first preaching around , he was silenced for non-conformity and again at Massachusetts Bay. With “his purity and soundness of doctrine”, he had a following of some two hundred settlers, “firm in their belief in free worship and democratic society.” In 1635, Hooker convinced the Bay General Court to allow him to settle the Connecticut River valley by arguing the need for expansion and occupation of the river and the tillage potential of its fields. By 1638, he had been successful and was still in ecclesiastical leadership control. Beside this independently-minded group of Hooker’s were others, clergy and frustrated magistrates, seeking to start settlements of their own, south of Windsor, Hartford and Wethersfield on the river and along the Sound coast where the Pequot War had been fought. John Davenport and Theophilus Eaton settled “Quinnipiac” as New Haven and Roger Ludlowe settled “Unquoway”, calling it Fairfield in 1639.

(Above) Britain’s King Charles I shown at the height of his reign. (Below) Connecticut as it took shape as a colony in the late 17th and early 18th century. (Courtesy Morgan, History of Connecticut as a Colony and State). 6 Concurrently, an extreme Separatist, Roger Williams was settling “Narragansett” as Rhode Island and Quakers, the Society of Friends or “Seekers,” occupied places on lower Cape Cod and the islands of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. The ambivalent, remarkable – and prescient- aspect of all the expansion initiative was the belief that freedom of faith was the root of government. As Forrest Morgan further explains, “they all recognized that they were called to the New World for the same end and aim – the advancement of the Kingdom of Lord Jesus Christ and the enjoyment of the liberty of the Gospel in purity and peace.” Unlike woven Crown and Anglican faith, their church creates it but civil affairs were to be separate with their own mission. They regarded their staked-out territory as plantations of “parishes” to be governed by people of the faith, or “freemen” electors in democratic majority. Linking the new towns of the new Connecticut Colony, they carried the principle further by creating the “Fundamental Orders” in 1639. To cement the principle’s limits, Thomas Hooker weighed in before the General Court. As historian John Fiske described, “ Mr. Hooker preached a sermon of wonderful power in which he maintained that the foundation of authority is laid on the free consent of the people, that the choice of public magistrates belongs unto the people by God’s own allowance and that they who have the power to appoint officers and magistrates have the right also to set the bounds and limitations of the power and place unto which they call them.” The Fundamental Orders eleven articles became the first written constitution in colonial America and gave rise to Connecticut’s Latin motto of “Qui Transtulit Sustinet” or “he who transplanted still sustains” and “land of steady habits.” Into the 1640’s, their novel ecclesiastical concept unified as the and individual land owners had to be members in order to own property and vote. Certain Puritanical excesses such as witchcraft punishment continued but diminished with court challenges. The democratic will of the people slowly took political hold.

The Events and Years of the Interregnum Back in England, a pronounced theological clash opened up between “Cavaliers” of King Charles 1 and the Church of England, and “Roundheads”, Puritan and Calvinist nobility and members of Parliament under Oliver Cromwell, an insurrectionist soldier and Founder of Connecticut Colony, “non conformist divine” Rev. Thomas Hooker, statesman. By 1645, it was open preaching freedom of faith and separation of church and state, 1635. (Left) Connecticut’s seal as set by the Fundamental Orders , 1639. (Courtesy, civil war. That year, following a Morgan , History of Connecticut as a Colony and State). three-year imprisonment in the Tower of London, seventy year

7 old Archbishop of Canterbury, , was sent to the block. Over the next four years the war and Parliamentary division propelled Cromwell and “Roundheads” to absolute dictatorship power. On January 30, 1649, King Charles was executed and Cromwell declared England a free commonwealth and himself as “Lord Protector.” For the next eleven years, this Interregnum period created a kind of state power vacuum in the colonies. Cromwell, more or less, maintained that their government affairs were on their own as long as “they absolutely remained of the faith” – his faith. By 1650 they organized a confederation as the United Colonies of New England. Ironically, they actually followed the model of a Dutch neighbor, Governor Peter Stuyvesant of New Amsterdam (New York) who visited them. The stage became set for later religious discord throughout all Connecticut towns, especially Fairfield. When he established his Fairfield, Roger Ludlowe acquired territory stretching from Stratford , through Westport to “Lord Protector” Oliver Cromwell, at the height Norwalk, designating them its east and west “parishes” of his Interregnum power. (Courtesy, Morley, respectively. For present day understanding, the approximate Cromwell, David K. Sturges) original size enveloped “Sasqua” (Southport), “Bankside” (Greens Farms) and inland, through Greenfield Hill entirely, up through Easton, and Redding, including the “Wolf Pits” near the Bethel line. There was more to Ludlowe than settlement leader. He was an English lawyer of prominent regard. In the new Massachusetts Bay Colony, he rose to Deputy Governor in 1635. As Morgan describes, “he had a hot temper but his abilities were respected.” After starting out Fairfield, he remained in Connecticut, representing river towns and authorship of the Fundamental Orders is attributed to him. He eventually retired to England. By 1660, “Lord Protector” Cromwell encountered ill health over and above his will and energy which had earned him the nickname of “Old Ironsides.” His death came in September. In early 1661, the monarchy was restored with Charles, II as King. The Interregnum and Puritan dominance was past. According to Coffin,

Archbishop William Laud, executed by King Charles I, at the time of his execution and (right) his trial in 1649. “Round Heads” in 1645. (Courtesy, (Courtesy, Morley, Cromwell) Morley, Cromwell). 8 Early map of Fairfield’s original territory acquired for CT colony by Settler and Founder of Fairfield, Roger Ludlowe. Roger Ludlowe, c.1639. Courtesy Morgan). (Courtesy, Fairfield Museum & History Center). “there was too much self-governing liberty in the colonies to suit the new King” and through his quo warranto, revoked all charters and previously-issued royal license. Additionally he decreed that all remaining open land was Crown property.

New Royal Authority and Its Religious and Civil Effect on the Connecticut Colony and Fairfield For the remaining decades of the 17th Century, the royal decrees of Charles II and his successor, James II, were enforced by a viceregal “doer”, Sir Edmund Andros, who was appointed Governor of New England in 1687, for the purpose of abolishing all local governments and subjecting them to a single administration under him. He is described by Fiske as “the King’s favorite dogged officer, faithful but coarse in fibre and wanting in tact.” He was met with equal but vain resistance in Connecticut when he demanded the return of its charter but the document was withheld and hidden in an old Hartford oak tree, known as the Charter Oak (from which the present day Governor’s desk was made). Anglicans, at least around Boston, had new leverage, with churches put up whether Congregational and other faiths liked it or not. In Fairfield, however, the expanse of rural town territory ironically worked to the advantage of further faith diversity. Groups Dutch Governor Peter Stuyvesant of New Am- sterdam (New York) who was a strong local petitioned to form their own ecclesiastical societies within the government advocate influence in early Con- original broad parish areas. necticut. (Courtesy, Morgan).

9 (Left) Since all ancient royal regalia was destroyed during Interregnum, two crowns had to be made for King Charles II: the State Crown (above) and St. Edward’s Crown he is shown wearing. (Courtesy Illus- trated London News, Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Number, 1953, David K. Sturges).

After several denials, a court award precedent was set by Nathan Gold in 1691 for “Pequonnock” (Bridgeport). Similar moves followed for Stratfield, Bankside, Greenfield, making up a “Prime Society” for sharing revenue between the new and the old delineations. They all remained, though, linked to the Congregational Church. The local faith multitude continued to pick up new elements. As Professor Thomas Farnham relates in his recent book, Fairfield, Biography of a Community, “the town was undergoing other growth changes that the founders of Fairfield would have regarded even more frightening than the appearance of additional societies.” By 1700, the prevailing sentiment was that any further accommodation of denominations would be subversive. A whole new challenge began in 1701, when King William III and the Archbishop of Canterbury created the Venerable Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPGFP) to revitalize the Church of England’s presence throughout the colonies. In 1707, the Reverend James Muirson, one of its early missioners, accepted and reported an invitation to preach and baptize in Fairfield. He asked for permission and was denied the town meeting house, forcing him to use a private home. Congregational hostility was outright oppressive and years passed before another effort was made. In this interim, a local physician, James Laborie covertly Crown-Appointed, Sir Edmund Andros, Governor struggled to keep going in his own house. His of New England 1687. (Courtesy, Morgan ). loyalty paid off in 1722, when the Society dispatched George Pigot to continue mission work in both Stratford and Fairfield.

10 Town hostility was implacable despite the General Assembly’s 1708 Act of Toleration which permitted “all persons who soberly dissented from Congregational Faith and Order to enjoy the same liberty of conscience with dissenters in England.” The Rev. Samuel Johnson, Pigot’s successor, “found no abatement of hostility” in relaying word back to the Society. The town insisted that all inhabitants, regardless of religious connections, pay taxes to support a Congregational Society or go to prison. To Johnson, this was the last straw. “Both I and my people grow weary of our lives under poverty and oppression.” He and his small flock of 35 families turned to the General Assembly in 1727 to be excused from such payments. The response was an unexpected declaration that these taxes required of them could reasonably be re-assigned to the Anglican ministry instead of a Congregational Society. It put needed municipal teeth into the Act of Toleration. Johnson’s presence and initiative reflected the growing influence of the new Yale College in New Haven. He had been a tutor there and then a Congregational Minister in West Haven. A colleague put a Book of Common Prayer in his hands. In fascination he read and re-read its pages and soon convinced himself that “there were no prayers like those of the Church of England.” He made a short trip to England to be received and ordained, coming back to serve the Society. His move had far more consequences for Fairfield. The successful petition had solidified the establishment of his Trinity Parish on Thanksgiving Day of 1725 as the second Anglican church in the Colony at its modest meeting house location in Mill Plain. The Petition had been signed by its (Above) Seal of the Venerable Society for the Propaga- Wardens: Moses Ward, Samuel Lyon, Dougal McKenzie, tion of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPGFP) created to John Lockwood, Nathan Adams and Benjamin Sturges. advance Anglicanism in the colonies, 1701. (Below) This first edifice of Trinity along present day Mill Plain Congregational-turned-Anglican missioner, the Rev. Road within Sturges Park was a very small meeting house Samuel Johnson, D.D. who as Stratford Rector, found- sparse by even colonial expectations. In Annals of an Old ed Trinity Parish Fairfield in 1725. (Courtesy Guilbert, Parish, Edmund Guilbert explains it vividly. Annals of a Country Parish, & Morgan). “It is difficult for us at the present time to conceive how humble and plain it was. Although designed for Episcopal worship, it varied little in size and appearance from the usual type of meeting house of that day. The windows were hardly more than openings for light and air, their size being reduced by the scarcity and cost of glass, there was no plaster on the walls; no cushions took the hardness off the narrow benches; artificial heat was unknown, even in the bitterest weather; there was the merest suggestion of a pulpit, and a rough, carpenter-made reading desk, balanced it on the other side. Seats were provided for the colored people apart by themselves.” The later folk he referred to were indentured man servants in the members’ homes. As the 18th century years went on, Anglican faith became a sort of refuge for Congregational people put off by the evangelical emotion and piety stripe of that Church’s “New Light” and “Great Awakening” movement. In Fairfield, its

11 Trinity Parish first Rector, the Rev. Henry Caner. (Right) the first church meeting house at Mill Plain 1725. (Courtesy Guilbert). old Prime Society network fragmented. Other denominations came in: Baptist in Stratfield under John Sherwood and Methodist, under Jessie Lee and George Roberts missioning from Middletown. In 1733, another Yale graduate, Henry Caner, who had been assisting Johnson as a lay leader, took up the cloth and assumed rectorship as increasing membership was outgrowing the meeting house, even though the size of the congregation still could not afford to pay him. In 1738, Caner approached the Town for a bigger church on a site closer to the center. In reply, “The Church of England was to be given liberty,” and he then secured construction funding from SPGFP. The result was in Guilbert’s words: “ substantial and comparatively elegant. It was 55 feet in length, 35 feet in breath with a handsome steeple of 100 feet, with capacious galleries and a good bell of 500 weight.” With it in place, Caner achieved great celebrity as a preacher and the Parish grew to 275 members.

Mid 18th Century Growth and Change in Fairfield and Its Effect on Faith Along with Anglican presence holding its own among other denominations, Fairfield grew in the mid 1700’s. Merchants and shipbuilders developed trade and prosperous business along the harbor areas of Black Rock and Mill River (Southport). Their output in shipping cargoes serving the British mercantile system brought success for the Wakeman, Wheeler, Sturges, Perry, Thorp Bulkley and other families. Farming the inland fields turned out exportable harvest in flax, wheat, corn and livestock produce. Agriculture was well supported by trades people skilled in blacksmith forging and grist and fulling millers along the rivers. By 1760, Fairfield’s population stood at 4,455, making it the fourth largest town in the colony and the second largest in taxable property. Out of the population total, some 260 were black, the highest in the colony. One out of every four blacks was free and the rest were either indentured as household servants and field hands. Many were literate. Indenturement was common since blacks feared for their low income and large family situation and knew of mistreatment elsewhere. They depended on local leading families for stability. It is important to note that this slavery and indentured approach was more sensitive than the Southern type and a number of free blacks worked as laborers on farms, docks and ships. They had to reside separately, but they could worship in church on Sunday and despite some exceptions, they were treated with respect by the more affluent and educated owner families. Even heads of churches retained them. Their manpower output was just too valuable to waste with mistreatment. This relationship was to foster heroic circumstances during the Revolution. At Trinity Parish, the growth of the Town led to some complacency which bothered Henry Caner and he grew restless with his conclusion that the Parish needed “stirring up.” “The present state,” he said, “does not yield me all the satisfaction I could wish” and he put into SPGFP for re-assignment. His successor, in 1747, the Rev. Joseph Lamson, was the type he was seeking. Of similar background, Lamson was born in Stratford and 12 brought up Congregational. He attended and graduated from Yale. He then decided to become a churchman, and, seeking Anglican Holy Orders, went to England to be ordained. SPGFP assigned him minister to the Bedford, New York and Ridgefield area before transferring him to relieve Caner in Fairfield. For the next 26 years until his death in 1773, Lamson strengthened the well-being of the Parish by compelling monetary gifts and legacies from the members, thus lessening its dependence of SPGFP. There were smiles all around in the church hierarchy.

The Onslaught of the Revolution

(Above) Guided by Caner, the second church of Trinity Parish built The French and Indian War of 1759-1763 near the Town center green, 1733. Later burned in the British placed a severe demand on Connecticut and Raid. (Courtesy, Guilbert). Fairfield. Thousands of local and colonial area men fought its battles further west. Donations of food were required to keep them nourished and regular British troops involved in the fighting were quartered in Fairfield and nearby towns. When the War was over, it left Great Britain deeply in debt and determined to force the colonies to pay a part of what it cost each year to administer and protect them. Just when townspeople thought their accomplishments and sacrifices were monumental, the Stamp Act, passed by Parliament in 1765, hit the people with taxes on documentation, mortgages, licenses and other legal papers. Hartford pointed out its unconstitutional taxation-without-representation violation of the Charter but the moves were futile. It was totally enforceable by Crown authority. Fairfield was furious as were the other communities and quickly formed a colonial rights “Whig” position from which it did not retreat. The stage was set for rebellion when the Revolutionary War broke out in 1775. Aid for (Below) One of Fairfield’s early successful merchants, Jessup Wakeman, who clerked and built his business out of Mill River (Southport). Early map of Mill River and harbor. Front page out of Wakeman’s calligraphy handbook c. 1771. (Courtesy, rare books, library of David K. Sturges).

13 Boston was called by the Continental Congress and Fairfield dispatched ample supplies of grain. Led by Andrew Elliott, the current Congregational Prime Society minister, Whig support was placed behind a Congressional association of non importation, non consumption and non exportation directed against Great Britain. The town sentiment was “ to die as free men instead of living in a servile state.” At a town meeting, residents appointed Gold Selleck Silliman, Judge Jonathan Sturges Sr., Andrew Rowland, Job Bartram and Thaddeus Burr as a representative board to consult with other towns on a collective and prevailing way of supporting the association aims. With this move, Whigs put another shadow on Loyalist/”Tories” among Anglicans, in a suspicious watch to be sure they did nothing to upset the colonial cause. At Trinity, Rev. Lamson had previously complained to SPGFP about “ the anarchy and disloyalty” atmosphere and having to “ impose submission and quiet deportment.” Anglicans were once again being threatened with “ having their houses pulled down around their heads” Things got worse when SPGFP appointed the Rev. John Sayre to succeed him. He was an outspoken Tory and became the butt of community anger. In January 1777, the Fairfield County Court declared him a person “dangerous to the united colonies” and placed him away in Farmington for “supervision of his activities.” The Court allowed him to return to the Parish that summer only after Whig board members Peter Bulkley, Judge Sturges and Thaddeus Burr interceded in his behalf. Civically chastened, Sayre decided to be prudent, gave up his open advocacy of the King and kept his mouth shut, even when Whigs (Betrayed “Tory”, Trinity Parish Rector, continued to “subject Anglican churches to beastly defilements.” the Rev. John Sayre. (Below) Town Green Municipal Buildings 1776 (Courtesy Farnham)

14

Top Left: Commodore Sir George Collier’s Flagship, Frigate HMS Camilla. Proclamation to Fairfield. Map of Landings (Courtesy Spt. Conservancy Packet)

King George III of Great Britain Zoffany Royal Collection Portrait ( Courtesy Naval History Magazine)

The War in Fairfield and the Decimation of the British Raid of 1779 Beset by conflict in Europe, Great Britain’s King George III and Parliament had to try and quell the American Revolution as a strategic side challenge and being short of military manpower. The King appealed to his Hanover royal cousins for help and the Marquis of Hesse came forth with Hessian mercenary units. As Washington’s Continental Army, supported by local towns, eluded defeat and laid siege to Boston, the British tactics were to cut the New England colonies off by the waterways and block their trade commerce. In 1779, the British attempted to seal off their treasonous Connecticut shoreline in a series of raids, conducted by a Royal Navy fleet of 45 vessels, under Commodore, Sir George Collier. It carried 3000 troops up the Sound under the command of Major General William Tryon. With Tryon were Hessians under General George Garth. With this hard-charging advance, Tryon was also hoping to lure Washington’s army out to defend the Connecticut shore and engage it decisively. Piloted up the Sound by George Hoyt, a Fairfield Tory, the commanders likely knew that the town was a hotbed divided between Tories and a greater number of Whigs and

15 (Top) British Commanding General, William Tryon. (Below) Raid forces shown in re- enactment event, British Regular Army Troops; Hessian Landgraf Sharpshooters; Hessian Jaeger Corps Light Infantry. (Courtesy, Southport Conservancy Packet, David K. Sturges) split their invasion force. Out of the Sound fog, July 7th, they descended on Fairfield from both East and West directions. The Hessians involved were the nastiest: the Landgraf Sharpshooters and the Jaeger Light Infantry, who, given the order, raped, robbed, set fire and immediately shot. This had a terror purpose, going house to house. If Tryon and his regulars could not wring out Tory allegiance and cooperation with Crown decorum, the Hessians were turned loose to do the dirty work of enforcement. Both Anglican and Congregational churches were caught in the middle of the invasion as targets, with their mixed Tory and Whig memberships. As the forces set fire to houses, Sayre jumped into the fray in his own and in Whig Rev. Andrew Elliott’s behalf of the First Congregational Church. He sought out Tryon and admirably begged that both churches and enough houses for public shelter be spared. In return for Tory Sayre’s effort as a messenger/intermediary, Tryon first gave him the protection order he sought. The British immediate objective was to penetrate the Whig militia defenses in the Round Hill area and to seize Black Rock Fort at the harbor mouth. As the day wore on, Sayre’s attempts were rebuffed, leaving Tryon unable to negotiate a calm surrender. The troops proceeded to savage the Town Center. As Andrew Elliott later wrote in a letter to his brother, carried in E.H. Schenck’s History of Fairfield, “The Hessians were let loose to rapine and plunder. They entered houses attacking the persons of Whig and Tory indiscriminately; breaking open desks, trunks, closets and taking away everything of value. They robbed women of their buckles, rings, bonnets, aprons and handkerchiefs. They forced them onto beds and abused them with the foulest and most profane language and threatened their lives without the least regard to the most earnest cries and entreaties. Looking glasses, china and all kinds of furniture were dashed to pieces.” As they went along, the troops seized residents’ black servants as economic chattel. One of them at the Jonathan Lewis house tried to defend the property and was bayoneted. Eighty year old Solomon Sturges, cousin of Judge Jonathan, with his, quickly met the same fate. The captive slave servants were rounded up and carried by the fleet into New York, where they spent the rest of the war on prison hulks in the harbor under appalling conditions. Very few survived. Incensed by his father Solomon’s cruel murder, Militia Captain Hezekiah Sturges tried to offset the Hessian savagery with his unit of 150 men and one cannon, but he could not gain the help of the rest of the militia’s support. Before they withdrew on July 8th, the British forces had laid waste to 200 buildings, houses and barns. When shown it, the Jaegers ignored Tryon’s protection order and torched both churches and their parsonages, leaving both Sayre, his wife and eight children and Elliott and his family homeless. Seared by the experience and jolting the congregation, Sayre simply left under arrest by the British. He later emigrated to Nova Scotia to serve SPGFP until his death in 1787.

The Long Recovery for the Town and Trinity Parish The end of the Revolution left Fairfield prostrate. Trinity Parish was left on its own with the SPGFP and the Church of England no longer as answering 16 (Above left) Bishop, Rt. Rev. Samuel Seabury. authority. The church was gone, all its communion silver, (Center) front page from 2nd Edition of Dr. sanctuary furnishings, records and library destroyed or stolen. Watt’s Imitation of the Psalms of David, as amended by theologian/poet/diplomat, Joel However, with now independent determination, the remaining Barlow, (right) of Redding. (Courtesy David congregation continued worship with a lay reader, Philo Shelton, in K. Sturges Library). a home provided by John Sherwood on Greenfield Hill, and subsequently, in another closer to town belonging to Capt. Hezekiah Sturges. The Yale influence of so many area graduates prompted the founding of academy schools in each society area. Gradually, Connecticut led the way to reconstitution of Anglican faith. Surviving parishes around the state responded to the determination of the Rev. Samuel Seabury, who had been ordained by the Church of England in 1753. He had served parishes in New Jersey and New York. During the Revolution, he had been suspected of being a Tory pamphleteer but it was never substantiated. He definitely was intellectually complemented by Joel Barlow of Redding, who graduated from Yale in 1778 and first studied theology and was a licensed preacher and chaplain. Poetry was part of Barlow’s many talents and he published his own revision of Dr. Watt’s version of the Psalms of David, adding several devotional pieces of his own. Later he took up law and became far better known as one of the nation’s first diplomats and ambassadors. At this time, Seabury sought consecration and the state parishes voted him their bishop- elect and backed his intent to go to Aberdeen, Scotland in 1784 to be officially made an Anglican Bishop by the independent Church of Scotland. It was the only option for him as an American to get around having to take the oath of allegiance to the British government. He came back suitably coped and mitered, and was immediately recognized as the

(Left top) Yale President and Congregational Society head, Timothy Dwight of Fair- field. Thaddeus Burr. Trinity Parish third church on Mill Plain green. (Right) Fourth Rector, the Rev. Philo Shelton. (Courtesy Guilbert & Farnham, Fairfield Biography of a Community),

17 first Bishop of the new Episcopal Church of the USA. Faith relations settled amicably. Congregational minister, Timothy Dwight, of the Greenfield Hill Society, became President of Yale in 1790. Slavery was first state outlawed in 1784, and a final declaration came in 1838. In Fairfield, Philo Shelton, Yale graduate, Lay Reader and Officiator of struggling Trinity Parish, sought holy orders in behalf of the local Episcopal Society overseeing the church welfare. In a convention held at Middletown in August 1785, Bishop Seabury ordained him as Rector. He gained support to build another church on the Mill Plain Green, chosen with congregation led by Nathaniel Perry. In 1788, Appointees of the Town, Jonathan Sturges and Thaddeus Burr joined him in driving the stakes for a structure, 48 by 35 feet, with 8x10 window glass. Shelton described it “as a pretty decent building with a steeple and bell and a gallery across the end.” The Burr family donated the lumber and by 1790, it was finished, opened and dedicated as the third

18 Parish church. Shelton continued with shepherd’s devotion as Rector until death in 1825. Trinity Parish had triumphed over its turbulent early years and was poised for further growth and challenges of the 19th century. An Early Years Heritage Surprise, The Not-So-Dry Bones In recent years, part of Trinity’s first church, the humble 1725 meeting house, was re-discovered. Around the building site off Mill Plain Road had been a small graveyard of members of the original congregation. Over the succeeding 156 years, the site had reverted to a farm field but the graves and their stones remained. By the late 1800’s, the field was within Mt. David Farm, part of the Sturges family estate. The owner, Frederick Sturges, Sr., together with the Town, grew concerned about the stones state of deterioration. In 1881, the stones were moved to the Old Fairfield Burying Ground on Beach Road, but, for reasons never fully explained, the remains were not exhumed with them. For the next 125 years, they lay lost and forgotten beneath the field which became Sturges Park, given to Fairfield by Frederick Sturges, Jr. in 1946. In 2006, a construction crew excavating a Town irrigation and drainage improvement for the Park athletic field uncovered some of the graves. The State Archaeologist was called in for site study and to remove and analyze the bones for forensic evaluation and identification. For the next two years the Archaeologist and anthropologists at Southern Connecticut State University examined and tested the remains to establish gender and learn more about the colonists’ lives. DNA sampling was taken and filed in attempts to trace descendants under the supervision of the Fairfield Probate Court and the Fairfield Museum and History Center. The final report was inconclusive on identification due to incomplete skeletal remains. No descendants have yet been traced and the State Report indicated that more remains may lie by and under the roadbed. Custody of the remains were granted to Trinity Parish, which had been sought by then Rector, Nicholas Porter, so that they could be appropriately re-interred with dignity. In a June 2008 service, officiated by the Bishop of Connecticut and Town Officials, together with Father Nicholas, the remains were re- buried in the Memorial Garden, within a common vault marked with a stone.

Re-interment of Trinity’s colonial forebears, June 2008: service order, drawing of one of the original tombstones and ceremony (right) organized by then Parish Rector, the Rev. Canon, Nicholas T. Porter. Celtic Cross remains in the Memo- rial Garden now.

19 the Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut

Beloved Parishioners and Friends,

As priests and lay leaders, we are asked to discern the role of the church in the world. Today, as in the past, our goals are to 1) strengthen faith through formation, 2) build a just and loving community and 3) reach out in ser- vice to others-following in the footsteps of our Savior Jesus Christ.

David Sturges's fifth installment of the history of Trinity Church describes the context and courage of our faith- ful forebears as they established an outpost of Anglican prayers and practices in the New World. As the second oldest Episcopal Church in Connecticut (after Christ Church in Stratford), Trinity endured major trials before and after the Revolutionary War, yet our church's founders persisted in building a lasting faith community in a time when religious freedom was still a dream, and when colonial life still sanctioned slavery.

In the midst of our own turning point in history, our church is grappling with how to best respond to the over- whelming Covid 19 pandemic in a period of massive protest against racial injustice. What is our role as a nexus of God's healing and reconciliation? To date, over 115,000 lives have been lost in our country due to the virus and uncertainty pervades our community.

Though our buildings were temporarily closed, our church remained open as we swiftly adapted to remote wor- ship services, physical distancing, and caring for our parish. At the same time, the outcry for further progress on race relations across our land pushes and recommits us to being a more diverse and inclusive parish.

I'm learning that God's plan comes to us as we listen to the prayers of our sisters and brothers for peace and rec- onciliation. We hope to develop a vibrant regional spiritual center at Trinity that will continue to grow our parish's liberating and life-giving legacy of Anglicanism.

Since its formation as a parish in 1725, the role of Trinity is to be a sanctuary where both the heartache and gratefulness of human experience is brought to God in prayer. Here we contemplate how the Holy Spirit is lead- ing us into new paths of faith, community and service.

With deep gratitude to David Sturges for enriching our parish life with his wonderful histories of Trinity.

Faithfully,

The Rev. Margaret Hodgkins 25th Rector

20 the Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut

Dear Friends,

Many thanks to David Sturges for his passion and hard work in scripting Part 5, in the series 'Working Long Toward Grace Above: Trinity Parish's Story.' Part 5 is titled 'Its Faith Acceptance Ordeal 1614-1800.While this is the fifth section to be written, it covers the very beginning of Trinity’s history during the period of the Anglican establishment in colonial Fairfield and the founding of Trinity Parish. Now that this section is complete, David will begin work on the final part of Trinity’s history encompassing the years 1800-1856. The other parts already completed proceed from 1865 onward, and are easily accessed on Trinity’s webpage at http://www.trinitysouthport.org/history-highlights: - 'Working Long Toward Grace Above' No.1 - 'Refining Gothic Presence with Ornamentation' No. 2 - 'Worship and Growth Amid 20th Conflicts' No. 3 - 'Broadening Mission to Community Presence' No. 4

David has been diligently writing about Trinity's past for 8 years. His first work was completed in December of 2012, when Trinity Parish celebrated 250 years of calling its current location at 652. Pequot Avenue home. Trinity has had 4 other worship locations in Fairfield and 25 different rectors since its founding in 1725. Trinity has been a sanctuary for spiritual worship and a beacon for change through good and bad times over the years. This holds true today, in 2020, as our parish is a bright light in a world suffering both from a global pandemic and a period of social unrest, Throughout its storied history, Trinity has helped people be better people, bringing good to the world in Jesus' name.

As a college history major, I am an easy target as someone who really enjoys reading history. Those with a different orientation would still very much appreciate this five part journey into Trinity's past. We are a vibrant and growing parish due to the enthusiasm and commitment of all of those who came before us. Happy reading everyone.

God Bless.

John Kreitler

Senior Warden

21 the Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND SOURCES

As our Parish approaches its 300th anniversary, its full history would not be complete without recounting the struggle of Anglican faith during New World settlement through colonial times to worship freely and survive the Revolution to emerge as the Episcopal Church of the United States. Trinity’s establishment in Fairfield is a mi- crocosm of that difficult time. The theological and civic relationships were complex and alternately frustrated and served one another. If these early leaders, settlers and ministers were to be brought back alive for the current membership, it was best to use the classic historical source books, much of which for me, came out of my family library. Along with the Fairfield Museum’s assistance from Librarian Beth Rose, we assembled a lot about these years, which had been forgotten or unknown. The old woodcut and lithographic illustrations and portraits in these volumes help person- alize these remarkable and dedicated people. Measuring our long past with present circumstances, first thought should be of our steady support by devoted parishioners over years and decades. Therefore, I dedicate this segment to the memory of Barbara Brown Stetson and Janet Holsten Perry. My thanks go to old friend and one-time Trinity member, Hort Spitzer, who contributed to the publishing effort. Eternal gratitude is extended to Frank Stirna, Jr. and Frank Stirna, III at Granville Printing for thier abiding extra effort in layout and copy enhancement. Finally, with encouragement from Vestry, Staff and Reverend Peggy, this “well seasoned”, old Church Historian got another job done.

David K. Sturges August 2020 ______

McBride, Kevin, “Connecticut’s Contested Early 17th Century Landscape”, CT Explored Magazine, Summer 2019 Issue.

The Illustrated London News, Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Number 1953

Southport Conservancy “Packet” Vols. 1 & 2 (bound 2011).

Barlow, Joel, Watts Imitation of the Psalms of David & Hymns, Hartford, 1785 (Rare, DS Coll.)

Beck, Horace, The Indian as Sea Fighter in Colonial Times, Mystic Seaport, 1959

22 Coffin, Charles, Old Times in the Colonies, New York, Harper 1881.

Child, Frank S., An Old New England Town, Deluxe Ed. # 170 to C.B. Sturges, Scribners 1895.

Danenberg, Elsie, Naval History of Fairfield Men in the Revolution, FMHC, 1977.

DeForest, John W. History of the Indians of Connecticut, Hartford, 1854

Farnham, Thomas, Fairfield- Biography of a Community, Phoenix, 2000.

Fiske, John, The Beginnings of New England, Houghton Mifflin, New York 1889

Forrest, Morgan, Connecticut as a Colony and State, Hartford, 1904, Vols. 1 & 2.

Guilbert, The Rev. Edmund, Annals of a Country Parish, New York, 1898

Hurd, Hamilton, History of Fairfield County CT 1883.

Morley, John MP, Oliver Cromwell, New York, Century 1900.

Naval History Magazine, August 2018

McPhillips, Robin, Jonathan Sturges, Merchant of Old New York, Gems Publishing, 2018

Schenck, Elizabeth H. The History of Fairfield, New York, 1889, Vols. 1&2

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