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The Beginnings of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut M TERCENTENARY COMMISSION OF THE STATE OF CONNECTICUT COMMITTEE ON HISTORICAL PUBLICATIONS The Beginnings of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut m PUBLISHED FOR THE TERCENTENARY COMMISSION BY THE YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS •j^BPPPMI^^^gl;;' 19 3 4 D / 1 . U TER XXX HIGH SCHOOL LIBRARY Llb'f-iry Service Center 50008372! 706 South Main Street Middletown, Connecticut 06457 TERCENTENARY COMMISSION OF THE STATE OF CONNECTICUT COMMITTEE ON HISTORICAL PUBLICATIONS The Beginnings of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut ORIGEN STORRS SEYMOUR I N order to get a right perspective of the history of religious life in Connecticut, it is important to re- member that in seeking a place in which to worship God in their own way, our Puritan ancestors sought Ito escape the way of worshipping God according to the ritual and discipline of the Church of England. That the Church of England, by reason of the Toleration Act passed in 1689, had ceased to harry the Presbyterians, counted for little in Massachusetts and Connecticut. The wounds of the persecution they had fled from were still too fresh in their minds to incline them to exercise tolerance here, where the arm of English civil government was palsied. The Charter of 1662 was the broadest charter granted to any plantation, and the general court in Connecticut conveniently forgot to send home the laws they enacted for their own governance. It was in this infertile soil that the worship of the Church of England was introduced into the colony in 1702. The year previous, the Society for the Propagation of the Gos- 1 pel in Foreign Parts had been founded by members of that Church. The Reverend George Keith landed in New Lon- don in 1702. He passed the ensuing Sunday with the min- ister of the Congregational Church, the Reverend Gurdon Saltonstall, some years later the governor of the colony, who civilly entertained him and "expressed his good af- fection for the Church of England." Mr. Keith preached in the Congregational Church, "to a respectable congre- gation, and the service was conducted in accordance with the Anglican ritual." Mr. Keith reported to the Society that there were thirty thousand souls in Connecticut "all Dissenters, supplied with ministers and schools of their own persuasion." Shortly before this time the colony had received a con- siderable incursion of English traders, mechanics, and arti- sans, and "some gentlemen of quality," attracted by re- ports that a good living could be made in the coast towns. Some of these people settled at Stratford, then one of the largest towns in the colony. A few of them were members of the Church of England, so that when the Reverend George Muirson, missionary at Rye of the Society for the Propagation of this Gospel, made an excursion through the coast towns from Greenwich to Stratford in 1706, he found a number of people who were anxious to attend a service conducted according to the ritual of their own Church and, also, a number of people who, though not members of the Church, were by no means hostile to it. Among the latter was the Reverend John Reed, minister of the Congregational Church at Stratford. When Muir- son came to Stratford a year later, accompanied by his friend and patron, Colonel Caleb Heathcote, a man of great repute in New York and an ardent supporter of the Church of England, one of the local magistrates of the Standing Order, with some of the other officers, came to 1 his lodgings and warned him that his activities were ille- gal. Nevertheless Muirson preached to "a very great con- gregation," though "the people were likewise threatened with prison and a forfeiture of five pounds for coming to hear me." In a letter to the Propagation Society, Muirson summed up the situation in Connecticut: "And though every Churchman in that Colony pays his rate for the building and repairing their meeting-houses, yet they are so maliciously set against us, that they deny us the use of them, though on week days. They tell our people that they will not suffer the house of God to be defiled with idolatrous worship and superstitious ceremonies. They are so bold that they spare not openly to speak reproachfully, and with great contempt, of our Church. They say the sign of the cross is the mark of the beast and the sign of the devil, and that those who receive it are given to the devil. And when our people complain to their magistrates of the persons who thus speak, they will not so much as sign a warrant to apprehend them, nor reprove them for their offense. This is quite a different character to what, perhaps, you have heard of that people. That they are ignorant, I can easily grant; for if they had either much knowl- edge or goodness they would not act and say as they do; but that they are hot-heady, I have too just reason to believe; and as to their meaning, I leave that to be interpreted by their un- christian proceedings with us." By way of contrast, Muirson revealed his own character in his description to the Society of the type of missionary to be settled in Stratford: He being the first "needs to be a man very prudent in conduct and exemplary in life and conversation. Gentleness and sweetness of temper is the readiest way to engage the affections of the people;... whereas passionate and rash methods of proceedings will fill their minds with prejudices against both our persons and our principles, and utterly indispose them against all the means we can make use of to reclaim them from their 3 errors." These passages from the correspondence of Muir- son are stressed because otherwise one might be led to be- lieve that some of the cruel and unjust treatment later accorded to the clergy of the Church of England who came to Connecticut was brought upon them by their own in- discretion. As one studies the character of these mission- aries throughout the eighteenth century, he is compelled to believe that, with few exceptions, the attitude displayed by Muirson, and his prescription for dealing with the hos- tile attitude of the Congregational Church, were the guid- ing principles of his successors. Slowly this came to be recognized by the better element of society and resulted in a gradual increase of the supporters of the Church. A most unexpected result of the visits of Muirson to Stratford was that Mr. Reed "declared for Episcopacy." The effect of this apostasy was very pronounced in the community, but drew upon him and his family bitter per- secution. His action, however, was as nothing compared with the shock that befell twenty years later, when his successor at Stratford, the Reverend Timothy Cutler, who had become rector of Yale College, and Daniel Browne, then the only other instructor at Yale, with nine com- panions, including the Reverend Samuel Johnson of West Haven, publicly announced to the College alumni and trustees assembled in the library at Commencement that they did not believe that their Presbyterian ordination was valid, and declared for Episcopacy. As President Woolsey later said: "Greater alarm would scarcely be awakened now, if the Theological Faculty of the College were to declare for the Church of Rome, and avow their belief in Transubstantiation, and pray to the Virgin Mary." This Reverend Samuel Johnson, who was one of the most beloved clergymen in Connecticut, and who, because 4 of his erudition later became the first president of King's College in New York, went to England with four of his associates, including Cutler, and was ordained and re- turned to the colony. It is he who justly bears the title of "the father of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut." Upon his return he found the adherents of the Church at Stratford had been engaged in erecting a building for their own use. This was the first edifice of the Church of Eng- land in the colony and was opened for divine service by him on Christmas Day, 1724. Johnson also took upon him- self the duties of caring for the scattered families of the Church in Fairfield, Norwalk, Newtown,Woodbury, Litch- field, Ripton, and West Haven. He was then the only clergyman of the Church of England resident in the col- ony. His associate, Daniel Browne, died of smallpox just as they were about to return to America, and James Wet- more, one of the nine, was not consecrated until a year thereafter. In writing to the Society, Johnson stressed, as did his successors for seventy years, the great need that there was for a resident bishop, mentioning that "a consider- able number of very promising young gentlemen, five or six of the best educated here," disowned the ministry and went into secular business because they were unwilling to expose themselves to the dangers of the seas, so that "the fountain of all our misery is the want of a Bishop, for whom there are many thousand of souls in this country that do impatiently long and pray and for want of whom do extremely suffer." He cited the instance of the death of Tutor Browne, and at a later date stated that of fifty- two clergymen who sought ordination in England, one- fifth perished on the journey. In spite of serious opposition, the little group of Angli- cans in Fairfield erected a church edifice in 1725. Two 5 years later the senior warden, Moses Ward, appeared with his attorney before the general assembly in May, 1727, to present a petition which pointed out that the adherents of the Church were obliged to support the rector of their own Church and at the same time to pay taxes for the support of the "dissenting" minister and for the building of the "dissenting" meeting house, and that ten of their number had been "lately imprisoned
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