F 104 .578 G7 1942 E FIRST CHURCH OF STAFFORD, CONNECTICUT

KENDRICK GROBEL

~r ~~~~

~ ' ~!{~ L~

DR. JOHN WILLARD'S DOORWAY Dr. Willard (pastor of the First Church 1757-1807) built this fine house about 1790 near the middle of the west side of Stafford Common. To-day it is the home of Mrs. Maude Smith. Photograph by Mrs. C. B. Pinney. HISTORY

of the

First Church of Stafford, Connecticut

known as

''The Stafford Street Congregational Church"

from its Birth, 1723, to its Death, 1892

-by-

Kendrick Grobe!, Th. D. Pastor of the Congregational Church of

Stafford Springs, Conn.

Published by

T he Women's Council of the Congregational Church, Stafford Springs

STAFFORD SPRINGS 1942

Contents

I Stafford Origins ...... ···························- 5

II Two Pastors in Court ·················································-·······---········'········ 18

III Eli Colton ------···························································-· ...... 28

IV Divisions and Schisms ·----······--····················------··-··-···-·-················ 33

V John Willard, D. D.-----·-······------···--···-----············--·--·---··-·-·····-··········-····· 41

VI Low Ebb ------·······-······--···-··········-································································- 49

VII Recuperation .. ·······-····················································-··-··············--·······-········ 56

VIII The Mills Bring Secession .. ·············-············································· 63

IX Retrospect 67

Appendix

Pastors 76

Fragmentary List of Church Officers ...... 77

Members of the First Church, 1840 ...... 78

Bibliography ...... ·····-································································ 81

Index ·············-········· ····-·····--········-········-··-···········································-·········-····- 84

CHAPTER I

Stafford Origins

In the eyes of the early settlers Stafford belonged to the back­ woods of Connecticut, because it could not be easily reached from either the sea or a large river. That is why eighty-three years elapsed between the first Connecticut settlements and the first official notice of Stafford. Thus neighboring Somers (then part of Enfield), being in the Connecticut Valley, received its first settlers about 1680. But the hills of northern Tolland County, (until 1785 within Hartford County), did not become desirable until after 1¥'00, when the lowlands were already pretty well settled. Ashford began to be settled about 1710, Tolland 1715, Stafford 1719, Ellington and Willington 1720, Union 1727. When this sec­ tion had been settled, the only large block of unsettled country in Connecticut was the still more rugged northwest corner, in the Litchfield Hills. Stafford's official history begins in October, 1718, but there were already settlers, or squatters, in Stafford before that, for the General Assembly provided for an investigation of their claims at the time the town was laid out *1. Several families appear to have lived here for some time before that. At least, the earliest vital records of Stafford record the birth of at least nine children before October, 1718, with no intimation that they were born elsewhere than in Stafford *2. Some, if not all, of these were among the families that Major James Fitch of Canterbury and Plainfield, "the Lord of the Mohegan Valley," had settled in Stafford before Feb­ ruary, 1716-1717 on his own initiative and without the approval of the government. Major Fitch and his father-in-law, Capt. John Mason, had in 1675 received a precarious title to a vast and vague territory in eastern Connecticut by the last will and testament of

*1 Col Records IX 64 *2 Children were born to Richard Pomeroy 1709; David and Joanna Rood 1712, 14, 17; Daniel and Mary Col bourn 1715, 18; Israel and Rachel Fulsom 1716,18; Richard and Hepzibah ·Coomes July 1718. This would indicate a population of at least 18 before official settlement began. LR I 446 ff. THE FIRST CHURCH OF

Joshua, sachem of the Moheagans, and son of the famous Sachem Uncas. Fitch considered Stafford his personal property. After a bitter controversy with the governor, Fitch humbly surrendered most of his claim to Stafford. Seven colony officers to whom Fitch had sold part of his right each received a grant of 250 acres in the rugged southwest corner of the town, near Soapstone Mountain. Fitch's son, Ebenezer, received a grant of 800 acres in very rugged territory somewhere along the north line of the town, perhaps Rocky Dundee. That grant was known for many years as the Great Farm. October 1-3, 1718, Thomas Kimberley, Surveyor of Hartford County, to which Stafford originally belonged, in company with three of the committee mentioned below laid out boundaries of a "township east of Enfield." At a meeting on November 19 the committee admitted John Howard and Daniel Pease as settlers. On November 29, 1718, a "Committee *3 Authorized and 1m­ powered by the General Court ... for the Granting and managing the sd township of Stafford" met here, fixed the location of Stafford Street, and determined the following conditions of settlement: The conditions and regulations upon which the Setterers and Inhabitants admited by the Committee are to have two hundred acres of Land a peace in the Town of Stafford as Declaired by the com­ mittee at their meeting in said Town november 29, 1718 first that every such setteler shall pay unto the committee seven pounds in good bills of credit at on or before the fiveteenth Day of may next Insuing 2-ly that within two years next comeing every setteler ad­ mited in sd Town shall build a dweling house upon the lott assigned to him by the committee not less then sixteen foot square with a chimney space and not less then six foot between J oynts 3-ly That every such setteler shall continue in said Town as a seteled Inhabe­ tant three year from and after the Expiration of This sd Two years 4-ly That all and Every of the sd settleres within the sd Two years and aliso within the sd Three years Being In the whole five years from the above Date pay their Respective pearts and proportions of all Town School and ministereal Charges within sd Town shall be agreed upon by The Majger pearte of sd Settelers To Be paid for Either or any of the sd Ends or uses.*4

*3 Consisting of Capt. Hamilton of Middletown, Esq., ·Capt. James Wadsworth of Durham, Esq., Capt. John Hall of Wallingford, Esq., Mr. Hooker of Farmington. Mr. Hezekiah Brainard of Hadam, LR I 47, II 257. *4 LR II 255. STAFFORD, CONNECTICUT page seven

Thus, before the town was, a church was provided for-natur­ ally a "church of the standing order," the state-church of the time, which so nearly had a monoply that no single denominational name for it had yet been established. Not until a century later was the term Congregational fairly uniformly adopted. But the organiza­ tion of the Stafford Church had to wait five years, until the town could support a minister. The committee engaged Kimberley to lay out the Town. He first laid out, November 1718, twenty-two 50-acre lots on the Broad Street, as it was usually called, or "King's Street" as at least one deed calls it: *5 then ten more on the south side of what is now the Buckley Highway, also twenty grants in other parts of the town, double-sized to compensate their owners for distance from the still­ to-be-built meeting house. By Ma)t 1721 there were sixty-three "proprietors" of Stafford. Seven of them were officials of the colony, who certainly did nat settle here; one was the holder of the Fitch Indian claim; one was purely theoretical, the share of the future minister. The remaining fifty-four presumably did settle, of necessity, to earn their title to the land. Of these, there is at present no clue to the former homes of twenty-eight of them. The rest came from the following places: Boston area 7, Western Massachusetts 4, Windsor, Conn. 4, neigh­ boring towns of Conn. 6, other Conn. towns 2, Great Britain 2. If the colony of Stafford may be classified as either Puritan or Pil­ grim, it was more nearly the former. The town patent of 1729 names ninety-two proprietors, but most of the added men appear to have been politicians and speculators; at any rate few of them 5ettled here. The future minister's home-farm of 50 acres was probably chosen at the time of the first survey in 1718: the lot numbered 21 on the original survey, the last lot on the east side of the Street at the south end, the farm that for about a century has been known as "the Foster place." That lot was undoubtedly chosen for the minister that he might live close to the meeting-house, which the committee originally "appointed to be erected at the south end of the broad street." *6

*5 LR I 122, Dec. 1723. *6 LR II 257 page eight THE FIRST CHURCH OF

The first town meeting on record was a proprietors' meeting May 19, 1720 to apportion meadow-land. The drawing was by lot, June 29, and "the minister" was given the first draw-by proxy, of course, since there still was no minister. The same meet­ ing directed the inhabitants "to Brake up and Cros Plow and fit for sowing with winter Cor(n) ... four Acres of land upon the minister lot"-and the following year it was "Voted that Benjamin Howard shall have that three acres of land Broken up on the minis­ ters lot three years and sd Howard is obliged to till sd land and leave it with sofiscent fence about it at the three years End and if the town see cause to take the land for the minister Before the three years is out then the sd Howard is to Resine it up the town Paying Resonable Rent for the land." "At the same meeting Israel Fulsom amd Sam'! Doolittle and Sam'l Bloggit was made choice of to make a pick whare to lay the ministry lot." This must have been some other portion of the 200 acres that were to fall to the lot of the minister as to any other settler. In further prepara­ tion for the future church the town on Oct. 13, 1721 laid an annual tax of 15 shillings on each lot in Stafford for four years for the support of the ministry. At the annual Town Meeting of that year, December 11, 1721, more than a year before they called their first minister, they "Voted to go on to build a meeting house as fast as may be with conuen­ ency to be forty£ ( ... ) foot in length and forty foots in length and twenty f ( . . . ) betwene Joints and that Sargent Howard Sam'll Blogg( .. ) Garshen Saxton, David Rood and Sam'll Doo­ little be committ( .. ) to See the worke Carried on." Two months later, however, they decided that was too large a building for them to undertake at that time; they voted to build it "five foots Shorter and five foots Narer ... which Brings it forty foots in length and thirty-five foot in Breadth." In January 1722 they voted to hire a temporary minister. "Voted to bier mer Billows to preah the Gospel to us three munths." Three men "ware chosen to discorse with Mr. Billows ... and also to provoid a place for Mr. Billows to keep ( .. )m in." Who this man was, I do not know; perhaps he belonged to a Monson family of that name (i. e. Bellows). Perhaps he accepted; but if he did, the record that the town ever paid or entertained him is lost. At least the town was not satisfied to make him their per­ manent minister, for in May they appointed the first pulpit com-· mitee: "Mr. Josiah Standish Gershen Saxton and John Warner ware Chosen a Cometee to Look out for a minster with the advice of the Elders and to provoid a minester to Preach the Gospel among STAFFORD, CONNECTICCT page t~ine us." *7 Though by October the committee had made no report of progress, the town meeting "Voted to Build a house for a minister use Whare he may be Entertained." In December the pulpit committee's problem was solved with­ out effort on its part by the unheralded and uninvited arrival of a Glasgow-trained, 28-year-old Scot, John Graham, with his Amer­ ican wife, Love Sanborn, and three infant children. Graham him- self left two accounts of his arrival in Stafford : "On Tuesday December ye 18th 1722, Mr. John Graham, a candidate for ye min­ istry (from Ireland) in his travels from ye eastern parts of N. England (where he had preached some years) into this Colony of Connecticut, was providentially cast into this town of Stafford, where he tarried that night, and next morning being invited by Mr. Josiah Standish (one of the committee) he preached there the next Sabbath." *8 By "the eastern parts of N. England" he meant Exeter, N.H., where he had lived for some time and where he met his frail wife, Love Sanborn, from nearby Hampton, N. H . He had left Exeter for the sake of his wife's health. They were apparently wandering southward with no .fixed goal when they were "providentially cast" into the raw little settlement of Stafford, of which they had likely never heard, and where they clearly intended to tarry only that night. But Josiah Standish, as chairman of the pulpit committee, was quick to seize the opportunity. The other account is in the first person: "I, John Graham, a candidate from Ireland, came to Stafford, Conn. Dec. 18th, 1722, and preached four Sundays cas­ ually." *9 We are sc;arcely to understand that he means haphazard­ ly, but rather: on no stated appointment, by casual invitation like Standish's, for one occasion only. That first Sunday that John Graham "casually" preached was Dec. 23, 1722-the first service of worship on record in Stafford's history. The congregation liked the young Scot so well that a special town meeting was called that week, Dec. 28, 1722, at which it was "Voted to hire Mr. Graham one month to Preach the Gospel upon his and our liking for a Settlement." But before that month was up, after he had preached three more weeks (Dec. 30-Jan. 13), the

*7 LR I 12 *8 Quoted from Graham's own handwriting by Wm. Cothren, Hist. of Ancient Woodbury, p. 225; Where he had seen ·it he does not say. *9 From Chas. Hammond, Tolland County Press of June 21, 1879 page ten THE FIRST CHURCH OF town's mind was made up. At a town meeting held Jan. 17, 1722/3 the selectmen were authorized to issue the following call: Stafford January 17th 1722/3 To Mr John Graham Late of Exeter in New hamshire Now Resident with us Greeting Sir/Persuant to ye votes of ye Town aforesd in a Leagual town meeting Baering Date with these presents, wee ye Selectmen to­ gether with the Com/tee Chosen and appointed for that end do from ye prospect of ye advancement of God's glory and ye great Good that Shall thereby accrue to us and ye souls of our Posterity, In behalf and by ye order of ye Inhabetents of said Town Call In­ vite and Request your Setlement with us in ye work of ye Gospel ministry upon ye terms and Articles voted and agreed upon In sd Town meeting during ye whole time of your Nature! Life and your Complience herein hope Shall be looked upon by us as a marcy from God for which we Shall have Reason for Ever to praise him and thank you. A Coppie of ye sd perposels is as followeth 1 Voted to give you Sixty pounds ye first year and to add to your Sallary Five pounds by year until it amount to Eighty pound, or to Rise as ye List of our Estat shall rise it amounte to ye sd Sum of Eighty pound 2d Voted to Give you, a day s work of Every man in town from Sixteen years old and upward Every year 3dly Voted to Give to you and your Heirs that right of land in Stafford Surquestered to ye first minister that Settles with us that to be Confirmed upon your ordnation 4 Voted to give you to ye Vallue of one hundred pounds towards your Building Sir your answer to these is Expected by us Joseph Orcutt John W amer Selecte Sam/ 11 Bloggit men *10 That is a document unique among the many issued by the sel­ ectmen of Stafford. Its pious tone is perhaps accounted for by the fact that one of the three selectmen was John Warner, who was soon to become, with Josiah Standish, the first deacon of Stafford's first church. Aside from the surprizing liberality of the terms, two items in ihat call were portentous: one ...vas the guarantee of Gra­ ham's right of land to his heirs, the other was the grammatical con-

*10 LR I pt 2, p. 443 STAFFORD, CONNECTICUT page eleven fusion and Jack of punctuation in the sentences surrounding the phrase "during ye whole time of your Nature! life." But that anti­ cipates the story. John Graham was content to stay. His acceptance is not on record, but it is clear that there was no break between his four Sundays' "casual" preaching and the beginning of his settled pas­ torate. At a town meeting a month later (Feb. 22, 1722/3) Mr. Graham showed that he could match the town's generosity with generosity of his own. "At this meeting Me. Graham ofred several things for the Clearing Scandals that were Cast upon his name which wear excep­ ted by a full and free Vote of the Town. Mr. Graham offred to give the Town ten Pound out of his first five years .Sallery and five pound out of his second years Sallery and five pound out of the hundred that was offred to him in beuilding in all 20" all this is given to the beuilding of the meetinghous Which the Town thank­ fully Except. It was also voted to ordain Me Graham to the woork of the minestrey the last Wensday in May next. (May 29, 1723) . It was also voted to beuild Me Graham an hous 20 foot !>quare with a Chimney Space and a Cellar the Charg of the hous is part of the 100" offred to him in beuilding and the sd house to bee finished by the last of April next and the Selectmen are Impowered to take care that the work bee finished by the time. Me Graham gives the Town fifty acres of Land out of his owne Right to bee Seqestered to the suckseeding Minestrey in Stafford. It was agreed to and voted not to go out of town for a Carpenter to beuild the meeting house. Elisha Hall Enters his desent against this vote. It was also agreed to and Voted to give John Maggrigory the Townes part of the fine due to them Laid upon him by Justis Strong of Coventry for the breatch of the Sabbath." *11 Arrangements to ordain the first minister and "to embody into church estate" were made at once. For both the consent of the General Court was required. Hence at a town meeting April 30, 1723 "Ensign Howard was Chosen to go to the General Court to procure a liberty to ordain Me Graham to the W oork of the mines­ trey also it was agreed to and Voted that the Select men take Care to provoide for the elders and Mesengers that wee send for to the ordination It was also voted that Every man in the Town shall have liberty to sell drink at the time of the ordination." *12 An ordination was no ordinary occasion, but one requiring full cele- bration according to the rough manners of the time !

*11 LR I 14 *12 ibidem 14 page twelve THE FIRST CHURCH OF.

The General Court gave its consent on May 9, 1723, and on the same day the North Association of Congregational Ministers of the County of Hartford met at Hartford, the Rev. Timothy Vlfoodbridge being moderator, and voted to examine Mr. J no Graham "in order to his ordination at Stafford" provided that the General Assembly give liberty. *13 A committee was appointed to examine him with Woodbridge *14 as chairman. Probably the committee assigned him a text for a trial sermon, as it did for other candidates about the same time and as the General Association had stipulated in 1712. *14a If so, it was undoubtedly the text he used at his own ordination on May 29th: II Timothy 2 :19b, "Let every one that Nameth the Name of CHRIST, Depart from Ini­ quity." That sermon was published by T. Green, New-London, 1725-without doubt the first publication by any resident of Staf ford. · A copy is preserved at the Connecticut Historical Society, Hartford (no. 27 in its library). The author is calied "John Graham, M. A., pastor of the Church of CHRIST in Stafford." The M. A. is a puzzle: Yale gave him an M. A. in 1737, but where had he gotten another one before 1725?-from Glasgow? At any rate the Registrar of the University of Glasgow could find no record of him in 1939. The tiny book of 43pp, 3"x4" sold for one shilling. The preface is by "Mr. Timothy Edwards of Windsor, the Rev'd Presbyter that gave him his charge." *15 The sermon itself, though not distinguished, is a capable, evidently very earnest, expos­ itory sermon, superior to the average sermon of that day. Who took the other parts in that first Stafford ordination we do not know. Graham's own record is laconic: "The manner of the gathering of the church was on this wise: The members attending and showing their recommendations from the the churches to which they belonged, the minister accepted them. Then the Rev Mr Meacham * 16 called upon God by prayer for Divine counsel and direction and a blessing on those to be embodied.

*13 Htfd. North Ass. Rec. p. 13 MS, Cong'l House, Hartford *14 sixth pastor of the First Ch. of Hartford, 1685-1732, and one of the absentee proprietors of Stafford, one of the "seven claimers". He was granted 250 acres of land in the SW corner of the town, partly on Soapstone Mountain. *14a Trumbull, I 489 *15 64 years pastor of Second Ch., Windsor, the father of the famous Jonathan *16 Joseph Meacham, Coventry 1714-1752 STAFFORD, CONNECTICUT page thirteen

After prayer Rev Mr. Williams *17 read to them an orthodox con­ fession of faith, to which they all assented. Then he read the church covenant which they solemnly renewed; and the pastors aforesaid declared them to be a Church of Christ." *18 The "orthodox confession of faith" was probably the Savoy Confession, adopted by the English Congregationalists in 1658, as incorporated in the Saybrook Platform of Connecticut, 1708. The "church covenant" which these first members renewed-for all of them were already members of churches elsewhere-may be safely assumed to have been identical in substance with the covenant which Trumbull prints as the one "owned" by the First Church of Hart­ ford in 1696: "We do solemnly, in the presence of God and this congregation, avouch God, in Jesus Christ. to be our God, one God in three per­ sons, the Father, the .Son, and the Holy Ghost; and that we are by nature children of wrath, and that our hope of mercy with God, is only through the righteousness of Jesus Christ, apprehended by taith; and we do freely give up ourselves to the Lord, to walk in communion with him, in the ordinances appointed in his holy word, and to yield obedience to all his commandments, and submit to hi:; government. And whereas, to the great dishonor of God, scandal of religion, and hazard of the damnation of many souls, drunken­ ness and uncleanness are prevailing amongst us, we do solemnly engage before God, this day, through his grace, faithfully and con­ scientiously to strive against these evils and the temptations leading thereunto. Certainly these men, named by Graham, were also among those assisting at the ordination. If John Graham made any record of the names of the ordaining council or of the charter members of the church, it is lost. But George Woodward 120 years later ap­ pears to have had definite information that the first members were 23 in number, 10 males and 13 females. *18a It is not difficult to surmise rather accurately who the ten males were. They certainly included the two deacons, John Warner and Josiah Standish; and the other eight were likely the first eight men to whom pews were assigned in 1745, viz. Capt. Dan'Il Blogget, Robert White, Ames

*17 Stephen Williams, minister of Longmeadow, Mass., 1714-1782 *18 from Charles Hammond, Tolland County Press of June 21, 1877 *18a This information, says Dr. Sherrod Soule, is not entirely credible, inasmuch as the custom was to admit women into a new church not at the founding, but shortly afterward. If the custom was violated in t'his case, then the excess of females over males among the charter members is still cause for suspicion. page /tnlrteen THE FIRST CHl:RCH OF

W a! bridge, Josiah Blogget, Cornelous Davis, Capt. Moses Fuller, Steven Cross, and Jacob Green. In twenty-two years, of course, death may have claimed some of the original 10. The wives of these men probably made a majority of the 13 females. The popu­ lation of the town was probably not more than 150 at that time, but even so the 23 church members were a very small minority. The selectmen did not succeed in completing the minister's house that April, nor the next; in December 1724 it was still in­ complete, for a committe had to be appointed then to complete it. If every man in town had contributed a day's labor as he was by agreement bound to do, perhaps they might li.ave finished it on schedule. The town might have foreseen that that day's labor per year of every man in town would cause trouble. It did that very first year: on Dec. 30, 1723, the Town voted "that Every man that failes of doing his dayes woork to Mr Graham according to Vote, hee shall pay three Shilling by way of Rate." But money was scarce. At that same meeting they voted to pay the minister in grain. "Voted ... that every man pay in his Rate two bushels of Graine apece one of English and the other of Indian or Eqvelent to Mr Graharr.s ~atisfaction." The following year, Dec. 28, 1724, they "let drop the dayes woork promised to Me Graham" and voted "to find him firewood insted of the dayes work." This arrange­ ment was continued with the successive ministers for a hundred years. In 1725-27 the town built a barn 2S'x30' for Mr. Graham and thereby fulfilled the obligation they had undertaken in building for him. Hence his house must have been finished by that time. The difficulty of travel in those days is reflected in the fact that Graham attended Association meetings only three times in the eight years he was here. Whenever the minister's house may have been ready, Mrs. Gra­ ham was not given long to enjoy it. Frail Love Graham, for the sake of whose health the Grahams had left New Hampshire, died in Stafford March 1, 1725/6. Hers is the first death recorded in Stafford Vital Records. She left behind four children, the oldest six years old, and the youngest not yet two. John Graham married again almost immediately. Some will think him lacking in feeling, but before censuring him one should recall that besides his pastoral STAFFORD, CONNECTICUT page fifteen duties he had to farm at least enough to feed his family and had to care for those four small children-because in the new colony of Stafford there probably was not an able-bodied woman who could be spared by her family to act as nursemaid to his children, even if he could have paid her. Only fathers of lively children can ima­ gine the hectic life of J ohn Graham that year between planting time and harvest! Under the circumstances he had no choice but to find a wife quickly. How he managed to find time to do the necessary persuading-and at a considerable distance, too-is a mystery. But on Sept. 13, 1726, he married Abigail Chauncey of Hadley, daughter of the Rev. Isaac Chauncey of Hadley, and great-granddaughter of Charles Chauncy, the second president of Harvard. *19 Her first son, Chauncey, (b. Aug. 28, 1727) was to be "the first native Stafford graduate of Yale" *20 and the first to enter the Chris­ tian ministry. To return to the meeting-house: its location is of more than passing interest in Stafford history, for it was not only the first place of worship in the town, but was the only public building in Stafford for more than a generation, and the piace where all the town meetings were held until after the Revolution. Because there are several conflicting local traditions about its exact location, I have been at considerable pains to learn the truth. The committee for laying out the town originally intended that it should be built at the south end of the Broad Street, i. e. about opposite the present Foster place. However it was not built there, but much nearer the center of the Street's length. I am prepared to prove that it was built 200 rods (% of a mile) north of the south end of the Street, opposite lots 13 and 14 of the original survey as reconstruct­ ed by the General Assembly's committee in LR II 253. The two fixed points of reference are: A, the old cemetery and B, the old road, now abandoned, leading westward from the Street as described below. References found in deeds and surveyor's returns to both landmarks are consistent in establishing this location. A. Eight acres for a "burying place" were reserved in the home­ lot of Elisha Hall, LR I 105 (recorded Aug. 29, 1724); Elisha Hall's home-lot was lot no. 16 (LR II 253). Ownership of lot

*19 Deac. John Warner had come from Hadley. Was he the interme­ diary? *20 Chas Hammond, Tolland County Press for June 21, 1877 page sixtee1~ THE FIRST CHURCH OF

16 passed, between 1724 and 1748, by nine conveyances, each men­ tioning the reservation of a cemetery, to Samuel Warner. (Elisha Hall to James Sawyer LR I 96, recorded April 20, 1724; to John Richardson LR I 158 March 30, 1725; to Elisha Nevers LR I 630; to David Read LR II 64, to Joseph Robinson June 9, 1741 LR II 64; to Joshua Reed LR II 117, June 6, 1744; to David Reed LR II 123 Nov. 2, 1744; to Gershom Dunham LR II 156 April 15, 1746; to Samuel Warner LR II 201 May 6, 1748.) When Samuel War­ ner deeded 4.\4 acres of this lot to Daniel Warner LR II 330 Feb. 5, 1753, he located it as "on the Broad Street near the ·meeting house." Samuel Warner's NE corner was at the meeting house, but the corner he here deeded was his SE corner beginning 42 rods S of his NE corner; hence he says "near" rather than "at." . B. A surveyor's return LR I 457, undated, but of 1733 or 4, reads : "A High way laid out from ye nf/,eet·ing house to Run weste betwene James Pascas homlot and James Sawyers hom lot six Rod wide so to Run W este to ye End of ye hi! betwene land laid oute to Joseph Orcutt and Jonathan Pasco bounding on marked trees to ye End of ye hi! then Running N orthwestardly to ye River (now known as Furnace Brook) and croste ye River to Josiah Bloggit home lot, then it turns westardly bounding on marked trees through Ben/m Bloggit farm and so to ye River (now Middle River at Or­ cuttville) and Croste ye River through Josiah Snow land bounding on marked trees until it meet with ye South Road at ye stony Gul­ ley or ye Rhod that Leads to Enfield (now State Highway 15 and 20)." We have only to locate the homelots of James Pasco and James Sawyer to have complete proof of the location of the·meeting house. Both of these men were original grantees on Stafford Street, but their lots ( 14 and 8, respectively) did not adjoin. But on Dec. 13, 1723 James Sawyer exchanged homelots with Elisha Hall LR I 96 and 122; Elisha Hall's lot was no 16, containing the cemetery and adjoining James Pasco's lot 14. Inasmuch as James Sawyer never acquired other land in Stafford, this was the only time their home lots adjoined. Therefore, this road led between Jots 14 and 16 from the meeting house, and the meeting house stood in the common at the intersection with this side road. The present traces of that road are consistent with the above description and the location of the meeting house is consistent with Rev. Geo. H. Wood­ ward's statement in 1843 that it " stood in the street, about half a mile south of this." (That is, from the meeting-house in which he was speaking, close to the Larned home; the actual distance was about 225 rods-7/10 of a mile,) In terms of the present, that meeting house stood in the middle of the Street between the houses now occupied by the Gagne and Fitzgerald families. It must have stood to the north of the present Stafford Street

Scale

Rods:9 · §0, . tpO

N

,K : site or the first meeting- house, built about 1726

@~site of the 2nd meeting-house, begun 1?7-.

~·site of the 3rd meeting-house, 1840 of the "Union House"

From Da. ta in Stafford Land

STAFFORD, CONNECTICUT page seventeen cross-road, because its main door was on the south. Hence we infer that it faced south overlooking the hollow of Ginger Brook looking off to the impressive height of Converse Hill in the distance. Its greatest dimensions were 3S'x40'.It had a side door on the east, and subsquently a west side door was cut through in 1737. The original side door on the east probably means that the traveled road up the Street ran, as it does now, just east of the center line of the Street. The permanent pulpit was not built until 1743; it can only have stood at the north end, the only wall in which there was no door. When completed there were galleries on three sides. The scarcity of glass was a major problem in finishing the meeting house. As late as August, 1728, it still had not been "glased". Even in 1759 glass was still a problem, partly solved by granting eight young men permission to build a pew in the front gallery on condition that they would keep the glass window in re­ pair. (In digging on the site of the church I picked up a fragment of very primitive, greenish glass, which may have belonged to that meeting house.) For twenty years there were only seats, no pews, in this building. There never was a bell. If there was a pulpit Bible in the first generation, there is no record of it, but in 1772 Mr. Ward-Nicholas Boylston, a merchant in Boston, made a present of a pulpit Bible in quarto. *21,*22 A century later this Bible became the property of Deacon John A. Larned at the disbanding of the church and it was treasured by him and his son, John M. Larned, until the latter's death in the fall of 1939. At his wish it was presented to the Connecticut Historical Society, at whose library in Hartford it may be seen. This building was for thirty or forty years the only meeting­ house in Stafford and the place where all the Town meetings were held during that time. The first three pastors knew no other meet­ ing-house, and Dr. Willard preached in it the first thirty-five years of his pastorate.

*21 Stafford Church Vital Rec., p. 55 *22 There is a portrait of a Nicholas Boylston by Copley in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, but I do not know whether this is the same man. See Art in America, Cahill and Barr, 1939, p. 18 page eighteen THE FIRST CHURCH OF

CHAPTER II

Two Pastors in Court

Unfortunately the records of organizations, whether they be churches or nations, are likely to be fuller and more eloquent for times of disaster and failure than for the times of calm and suc­ cess. If the First Church kept records of its own in the beginning, and if they had been preserved, probably they would give us some insight into the constructive work accomplished by the first two pastors. But we have only the Town and Court records, and they tell us mostly of the unpleasant end to which both those pastorates came. Judging from his long pastorate in Woodbury and from his writings, we must assume that John Graham was an unusually capable minister, but his ministry in Stafford, like that of his suc­ cessor, came to a bitter end. In that Nature had a part. In the year 1726 all eastern Con­ necticut was visited by a severe famine due to late frost and crop failure. Stafford is mentioned among the towns that received fam­ ine relief from the General Assembly in that year. The minister, as the only salaried official of the town, naturally felt the pinch of famine years even more than the average man of the town. That terrible year and others like it were in the mind of Mrs. Graham when she wrote to a relative *23 : "There [in Stafford] we under­ went, for some years, such pinching straits as would make your heart bleed, did I relate them to you. But Mr. Graham's charge of that people lay so near his heart, that he could not entertain the thought of leaving them, but hoped every year it would be better the next-till at last it came to that, we could not get bread to eat. We have not had a morsel of bread for five or six days at a time, and when my children have cried for supper, I have been obliged, night after night, to sing them to sleep, having nothing to give them." *24 Had Graham been brought up as a farmer rather than an Old World scholar, he might, like his neighbors, have coaxed a bare existence out of his stony acres on Stafford Street. But he

*23 Dr. Nathaniel Chauncey, a member of Yale's first graduating class and minister at Durham, Conn., 1711-56 *24 letter undated, but sometime in 1731 or 1732; quoted from Chas. Hammond, Tolland County Press for June 21, 1877 STAFFORD, CONNECTICUT sought relief in another way. He either had left property behind in Great Britain, or more likely, had recently fallen heir to some­ thing there. At a town meeting Nov. 3, 1729, it was "Voted that ye town submit to ye Conduct of divine providence in leading Mr. Graham to be absent from us for a season beit for ye speace of twelve month to take Care of his Temporal Concerns In Irland it being stil provoided that he Supply ye pulpit with a Person quale­ fied to dispence all ye ordenances of ye Gospel to us In his absence." There is no specific record that Graham went to Ireland in 1730, but since he had himself sought a leave of absence and was granted it, we may assume that he did. At any rate he was back in Stafford before Feb. 2, 1730/1 and was uneasy in mind and dis­ couraged. On that day, for the first time in seven years he at­ tended a meeting of the Hartford North Association in whose records *25 ~he following appears: "On ye Rapresentation ye Rev/ d Mr Graham has made to us of a discouragment he meets with in ye work of his ministry, wee are of opinion that unless his circumstances be altered for ye better and his people do immediately give him suitable Encouragment to continue in it, that his case be Referred to a Council, and in Case his people will not be at the Charge of it, or concur with him in it, that he may call a council within the limits of our association and notify them to appear at it." *26 During the following two weeks Mr. Graham let his feelings be known in Stafford; they became the subject of a town meeting on Feb. 15th. But here begins a curious juggling of the town records, whose obvious intent was to delete the record of the town's controversy with and lawsuit against their first minister. One whole leaf was torn out of Stafford Land Records, Vol. I, following the page now numbered 22. It contained the records of six town meetings from Feb. 15, 1730/1 to Dec. 4, 1732, all of which refer to the case the town was bringing against John Graham. But the leaf was not lost. It was still loose in the book when it was repaired and re­ bound in recent times. The binders inserted it after the index and numbered it V /9, VI/10. The index page IV /6 also contains a scribbled account of a meeting Dec. 17, 1733, also referring to Mr. Graham. That the whole leaf was not accidentally torn out is

*25 at Cong'l House, Hartford *26 Hartford North Association Records, p. 25 page rwenty THE FIRST CHURCH OF shown by the existence of an expurgated account (now to be seen at LR l 22) of the first meeting recorded on the torn leaf. Both accounts are given here:

Ortginal account, p. V /9 Deleted account, p. 22 "At a Town meeting Leagualy "Att a Town meeting Leagually Warned and hild on mond ..... Warned and hild on Munday ye fifteenth day of Fabuaryl730/ fifteenth day of Fabuary 1730/ 31 Ensign Benjamin Howard 31 Ensign Benj/m Howard was Chosen morderator for ye Chosen morderator for ye work work of ye day at this meeting of ye day: at this meeting Josiah Standish and John Warner was Chosen to Go to ye . .. Mr Grahams to desire him to Signifie to ye Town what mead him so un E . . . and to propose Sum metherd to ye Town whereby they might .. k. things more Cumfortable to him at this meeting Voted to Ra .. e it was Voted to Raise a taxe of twelve pounds three a Tax of twelve pounds three shillings to defray town Charges shillings to defray town Charges -- At this meeting Voted to also it was Voted to Raise a tax Raise a taxe of ten pounds of ten pound upon poles to upon Pol t. procure ye Rev j r procure firewood for Mr Gra­ Mr. Graham firewood for ye ham this year" year Ensui .. also Voted to Give Will/ m Orcutt tep pounds to procure ye . . . Mr Grahams firewood for ye year Ensuing" The only essential difference between the two accounts is the latter's omission of the main reference to Graham. The vote about furnishing him with firewood for the ensuing year indicates that the town had no expectation that he was going to leave. The na­ ture of the difficulty can be inferred from the vote of March 15 (1730/ 1): "not to adde to Mr Grahams S ..... Neither to mak any New Bargain with him at present." Stafford records say nothing of Graham's reply, but the writ of attachment of Graham's Stafford property does: "the Defend/t--Did on the 15th Day of March last Declare to the Town of Stafford that he was Dismissed from his Ministry in said Town and under no Obligation thereto, and Imploys himself in preaching in a Precinct or Society in Had­ ley." The writ (in the Archives of the State Library) is dated STAFFORD, CONNECTICUT page ·twenty-one

April 3, 1731. He had preached for the last time in Stafford March 14. In less than two weeks he had moved and found tem­ porary employment in his wife's home town; it must have been the embryo of the South Hadley church, which was formally organ­ ized two years later, 1733, that he was serving. The writ implies and Mrs. Graham's letter, referred to above, states that a council of ten churches had met as stipulated by the Saybrook platform and declared Graham's connection with the Stafford Church dissolved. April 7, 1731, Daniel \Varner, constable for Stafford, attached 200 acres of Stafford land belonging to Graham, including his home lot. The town was suing him for 300 pounds for breach of con­ tract involving the ownership of those 200 acres. The town con­ tended that he had contracted to be minister during his natural life time, thougij the vote of the Town made no mention of duration of office, and the selectmen's call very ambiguously mentioned it. When the case was tried, Graham moved to have the case dismissed on the ground that it was not within the jurisdiction of the County Court, but within that of the Consociated Ministers. The Court overruled him and he appealed to the superior court, which reversed the inferior court and barred the action of the Town of Stafford against Graham. This decision is undated, but appears to have been rendered in March 1732. John Graham had won his case, but he still feared further at­ tachment and suit by the Town. Accordingly he made haste to dispose of his Stafford lands-and thereby cheated himself. On June 1, 1732 he conveyed all his lands in Stafford to John Caldwell of Hartford, who had been his surety to the County Court. The deed solemnly declares "for and in consideration of five hundred pounds Curant money of New England to me in hand well and truly paid by John Caldwell-before ye Signing and Ensealing of these presents to my full Satisfaction and Contentment." *27 The hitch was that John Caldwell knew nothing either of the conveyance or the 500 pounds, and worse still, he died without having done anything about it. Caldwell's widow was willing to reconvey the land to Graham, but had no authority to do so, pre­ sumably because she was not the sole beneficiary of the estate. Graham's petition to the General Assembly to secure reconveyance

*27 LR I 432 page t'lt.1enty-two THE FIRST CHURCH OF of his lands is on record. But on the testimony of Hezekiah Wyllys, the justice before whom the deed was acknowledged, and George Sutton, one of the witnesses to it, that Caldwell was in Boston at the time, the General Assembly refused the prayer. Thus both Graham and the Town lost the value of the ministerial lands of Stafford. The rest of Graham's life lies outside this story, but may be summarized in a paragraph. In 1733 he became the first minister of the Second Church in Woodbury, Conn., now the First Church of Southbury, where he served a distinguished ministry of 41 years, closely associated with Yale University, which twice sent him to England to secure books and financial aid for Yale. A number of his writings still exist. These include: rl. Lecture Sermon at New-Milford, 1724 (?)-so Evans­ probably identical with no. 41 2. His sermon at his own ordination in Stafford, "Let every one that Nameth the Name of CHRIST, Depart from Iniquity." T. Green, New-London, 1725 3. A Ballad attacking the Episcopal Church. (I have never seen a copy of it, nor is it listed in Evans. "About the year 1732 the [Episcopall Church in Connecticut was more violently and rudely attacked by Mr. Graham, of Woodbury, in a scurrilous, malicious, and awkward ballad which he published."-Thomas Bradbury Chandler in Life of Samuel Johnson, p. 68) Two lines of it are quoted in Beardsley's History of the Church in Connec­ ticut, I 95: "They that do thus and won't reform these evils, Are these Christ's Church, pray, or be n't they the Devil's ?" 4. A Lecture-Sermon by John Graham, M. A., Minister of GOD'S Word in Southbury, preached at New-Milford, Aug. 23, 1732, Occasioned by the Growth and Spreading of Quakerism in that Place. In this sermon Graham shows remarkably advanced Biblical Criticism for that century in doubting the Pauline author­ ship of Ephesians: "whoever was the Amanuensis, the Holy Ghost was the Dictator." Cf. No. 1. 5.-7. Three tracts in a debate with Dr. Benjamin Gale on the Anglican Church, 1732-6. 8. A Sermon at the ordination of the Rev. Edmund Ward at Guilford, Sept. 21, 1733. Newport, James Franklin, 1734. STAFFORD, CONNECTICUT pa.ge t<.Venty-three

9. The Duty of renewing their baptismal covenant proved and urged upon the adult children of professing parents. Boston, S. Kneeland and T. Green, 1734. 10. Such as have grace fittest to teach the doctrine of Grace explained and proved, being a sermon preach'd in the Second Society of Coventry, Oct. 9, 1745, at the ordination of the Rev. Mr. Nathan Strong. Boston, S. Kneeland and T. Green, 1746. H. The Sufficiency of a Worm to the Work of an Angel, ordination sermon for John Graham, Jr., to the 2nd Church in Suffield, Oct. 22, 1746, preached by his father, John Graham, of Southbury. 12. A Sermon at the Ordination of his son in the precincts of Rumbout and Poughkeepsie. New-York, James Parker, 1750. (This was probably the ordination of his son, Chauncey, who was pastor of a church at Fishkill, N.Y.) 13.-19. Seven published articles in defense of the adminis­ tration of his personal friend, Thomas Clap, as president of Yale. 20. Hymns. (I have never seen any, but a MS letter of Sylvester Graham in the Yale Library says that his grandfather wrote "a number of hymns and other verse." Nor am I certain that they were ever published.) Most of his five daughters married ministers. Of his five sons, John, Chauncey, (Fishkill, N. Y., d. 1784) and Richard Crouch (Pelham, Mass.) became ministers; Andrew and Robert became physicians. (Andrew was surgeon of the American troops at the Revolutionary Battle of Danbury, and was taken prisoner at the battle of White Plains.) When John Jr., (Yale, 1740) was ordained pastor of the Second Church, Suffield, Oct. 22, 1746, his father proved his thorough Calvinism by preaching an ordination sermon entitled "The Sufficiency of a Worm to the Work of an Angel." It was a good sermon, too! John, Jr. was both pastor and physician at West Suffield. That the elder John was likewise a physician has been often asserted, but having found no slightest evidence that he was, I surmise that the idea arose through confusion of the two John's John Jr. was an army chaplain at Crown Point, 1756, and at Havanna, 1762 (see his published diary of the latter period); he had seventeen children, the last of whom was Sylvester, who, while preparing for the ministry at Amherst was expelled for "too great interest in histrionics". He later became a physician and toured the country, lecturing, among other things, on the virtue of page tlwet~ty-four THE FIRST CHURCH OF

"unbolted" flour with such eloquence that graham flour, graham crackers, graham bread have far outlived the memory of the man whose name they have made a common adjective. Thus, when­ ever we say "graham crackers", we take the name of our John Graham's grandson upon our tongue. It was this "Graham-flour" Sylvester who was responsible for the note in Sprague's "Annals of the American Pulpit" and in "Yale Graduates" to the effect that his grandfather was a descendant of the Scottish Duke of Montrose, but neither he *28 nor anyone else has ever shown the slightest genealogical evidence of such noble lineage for Stafford's first min­ ister. *29 His grave may still be seen in the Stiles Cemetery, Southbury. *30 Immediately upon Graham's giving up his office in Stafford the Town secured an otherwise unknown Mr. Dickenson as supply pastor. He preached from April 1731 until at least January, 1733, and probably for a whole year longer than that. First, second, and third choices for a permanent minister are recorded in Town Meet­ ing records for December, 1733, but none of them accepted this frontier post. Finally June 6, 1734, the town took the following action: "Voted to Give to ye Rev/d Mr. Seth Payn of Lebanon Now Residing with us In this place (upon his sitling in ye [sic] of ye ministry with us and continue therein so long as God shall Enable to the work) 100 acres of land to take in ye undevided land in sd Stafford towards Sitlement and to Give him one hundred pound Sallary per year- -- Also Voted to pay sd hundred Pound Equivalent to Silver money at twenty Shillings per ounce and to H.ise and fa! as Bills of Credit on ye Coloney Shall Rise and fall. Also voted to pay from this day till october N exte, ...... Also Voted to Give ye Rev Mr Seth Payn thirty Cord of Wood to be delivered at his house yearly and to Raise it upon pole from sixteen years old and upward." *31

*28 see MS letter from Sylvester Graham to the Librarian of Yale College, Nov. 2, 1849, in Rare Book Room, Yale Library *29 the earliest claim to such nobility is on the tombstone of Dr. Andrew near that of the father: "a Descendant of the Duke of Montrose." The monument is dated 1805, though Dr. Andrew Graham had died in June 1785. *30 Inscription: (Winged death's-head angel) "in Trust at Best­ here Lies the Rev /d john Graham Who Departed this Life December the 11th AD 1774 in the 81st Year of his age and 54th year of ·his Minis­ try." implies that his ministry began in 1721-probably at Exeter, N. H., as unordained acting minister. *31 LR I 491 STAFFORD, CONNECTICUT page twenty-five

The acceptance follows: "I Seth Payn of Lebanon In ye County of Windham and Coloney of Conectecutt Resedent in Stafford In ye County of Hartford and Coloney above sd Haveing heard and considered ye Call and propossels made to me by ye above sd Stafford to Setle in ye work of the Gospel ministry amongs them: and do accepte upon these tarms made to me on sd Stafford Records Baering date with this writing In Confirmation here of I have here unto Set my hand. June ye 6th 1734 Seth Payne. *32 Payne had already been licensed by the Association of Wind­ ham County. "'33 The scanty records of his ministry may not do him justice, but such as they are, they show him to have been an eccentric, crafty man, totally unworthy of his sacred office. Before six years were over the town chose a committee "to treat with Mr. Payne to see wheather he will Dismiss his pastoral Care of his flock and to make thear Report to the Association". *34 Mr. Payne evidently was not willing. The moral puniness of the man is evi­ dent in the testimony of Mary Blogget: "Mary Blogget of Lawful age testifieth and saith that in the time when the contrivarsey was betwene mr payn and his pepal mr payn was att our house and I was a discorsing with him consarning the affairs and mr payn said that thay Say that thay will git me out of town but thay cant do it fer I have such an Intris in ye town that I shall not Leve it-but I sopose thay meane to git me out of the ministry and I dont know but thay will-and thay say that I am a plague to them but if thay git me out of ye ministry thay shall find that I will be a grater plague to them than Ever I have been and he hath Repeted this discors to me sundry times." *35 The Association ordered a council to be called to consider his case. It met at Stafford June 10, 1740, the venerable Timothy Edwards presiding. Four charges were brought against Payne: 1. Sinful neglect of the exercise of church discipline. 2. That he had been a sower of discord and Stirrer up of Strife in the Church and Town of Stafford.

*32 LR I 491 *33 Hartford North Ass. Rec. p. 25. He was the first person licensed to preaoh by Windham Ass., Aug. 29, 1727. He was born Jan. 16, 1701-2 in Braintree, Mass., son of John. Before he was called to Stafford he had been suspen.ded from preaching for a few months for improper expressions (threats of violence to his brother). He was ordained in Stafford, Aug. 7, 1734.-Dexter, Yale Biographies. *34 LR II 5 *35 Eccles. Archives of Conn., 1st Series, X 88 page twenJy-siz THE FIRST CHURCH OF

3. Scandalous breach of the 6th commandment. ("Thou Shalt not kill"!) 4. Breach of the 9th commandment. ("Thou shalt not bear false witness against they neighbor.") *36 What lay behind the accusation that he was both a murderer and a liar is lost in the mists of time. The council resolved all four charges in the negative, but on the petition of the people of Stafford, "Council think it might be for ye Interest of Religion and ye peace of the Town of Stafford," if Mr. Payne would resign his pastorate. Payne bowed to the inevitable and resigned, but in doing so drove a hard and underhanded bargain: Know all Men By these presents that I Seth Payne Pastor of the Church and people In the Town of Stafford in the County of Hartford and Coloney of Connecticut In New England have Re­ ceived Security from Samuel 'vVarner Amos W albridg and John Baldwin of the Town of Stafford above sd for the sum of one Hundred and fifty Pounds Currant Money In Consideration of my Resigning my pastoral Care of the Omrch and people in Stafford above sd and peartly In Consideration of the Discent of Money for the Time of my Ministry among them and In Consider­ ation of Which the Town are Behindhand in finding firewood ac­ cording to Their Covenant which I hearby accept In full Satisfac­ tion for all Demands I have upon the sd Town of Stafford upon the acconte above sd-and all Demands whatso Ever Excepting what is Behind of my annual sallery Being on hundred pounds pra ...... In our presentCurency and Theare upon I Do heareby Declare that I Do now Resign my pastoral Care of the Church and people in above sd pursuent to the advice of the Revjd Councell held In this Town on the lOth of June Last By adjournment from the Thirtenth of May preceding allways provided and it is hearby to Be understood that this Instrument Shall not Debar me from Holding or taking up any Land Voted or Granted to me By this Town of Stafford or aney affect the force Wittness my hand this 27th Day of July AD 1740 Seth Payne *37 Witness Daniel Fuller Henry Allyen

•36 Eccles. Archives of Conn., 1st Series, X 71 •37 LR II 117 STAFFORD, CONNECfiCUT page twenty-seven

Payne's tricky strategy was to take the note of Walbridge et al., sue the town first, collect from it, then sue Walbridge and col­ lect again. John Lindsay certifieth and saith that att a town meeting when ye com/tee was a Requesting of the Town to grant that mony that thay gave Mr. Payne a Note fer-and ye town manifist sum­ thing of a mind to grant it and Mr Payne came to me and said that the pepal was bewicht etc and hinder or Stop that Vot for if ye town past ye vote that he wold sartainly make ye town pay that mony over again Every a pence. John Lindsay *38 Payne did sue the town for 650£ arrears of salary and was granted execution for 134:3:2 and costs, December, 1740. He did prevent the town from voting payment to Walbridge. He did sue Walbridge to collect 145 pounds, but lost the case. Later Payne sent a petition to the General Assembly to recover from the town. It sent an investigating committee to Stafford Sept. 25, 1744, whose chairman was Col. Jonathan Trumbull *39 of Lebanon. On the committee's recommendation the Assembly voted a flat no. Thus was the scheming Mr. Payne frustrated. He never held another pastorate. The Church was well rid of this unworthy minister, but the townspeople of Stafford were not. For thirteen long years after his forced resignation he continued to live in his Stafford home, the nearest house to Stafford Meeting-house on the west side of the common on the plot numbered 14 on the map. During most of those years his next neighbor to the south was his successor, Eli Colton, in whose flesh he must have been a troublesome thorn. The records are silent about his relations with his Stafford neighbors during those years, but it can be imagined that they were scarcely cordial. He died in Stafford March 4, 1753, survived by two sons, Stephen and James, and a daughter, Rachel. Two lawsuits terminating the first two pastorates in the history of Stafford! Not an auspicious beginning. The Town and Church of Stafford settled no minister for four years after the pain of Seth Payne.

*38 Eccles. Ar·chives of Conn., 1st Series, X 87 *39 Supposed to be the original of "Brother Jonathan," the predecessor of Uncle Sam as the popular eponym of the American people. page twenty-eight THE FIRST CHURCH OF

CHAPTER III

Eli Colton

With its fingers burned by recent experience, but still looking for a pastor who would serve out a lifetime, Stafford was cautious in the choice of its next minister. Perhaps the candidates, on their side, were cautious, too. The names of eleven different men *40 are mentioned as sup­ plying during the years 1740-44, some for months at a time, some for only one Sunday. They were paid a pound a Sunday. Several of them were asked to settle, but none did until Eli Colton of Sims­ bury was hired for six months, July 23, 1744. But in less than two months he was called to be the minister-this time no longer by the selectmen, but by a joint committee for the Town and the Church­ and accepted with his eyes open, as the following letter testifiies. "Gentlemen Committee You have Made a plication to me In Order to settling with you and you seem to Continue your suit with Expectation of an answer I wold Say to you that I have as I hope In Sum Good Masure Studied The greatness and arduousness of the undertaking and it seems to me that I am Called to Devote my self to the service of God and the Redeemer among you I Do accept of your offer hooping and Expecting your help By prayers and otherways in so grate an undertaking Eli Colton" *41 Eli Colton was a native of West Hartford, the son of the Rev. Benjamin Colton. Eli was the first minister of the Granby Church ( 1740-42), then known as the northwest society of Symsbury. Though the Hartford North Association had advised that society in 1741 to call and settle Colton, it had not yet done so when he was called to Stafford. He had not yet been ordained. The Hartford North Association met at "Wellington" Oct. 2, 1744, examined Eli Colton for ordination and approved him. On Oct. 11th the town

*40 Shubal Conant (Dec. 13, 1740-spring, 1741), Messrs. Baker, Morrison, Fezingtine, Conant (1741), Seth Deane (17 wks. 1741-2), John Rogers (15 wks, 1742), Messrs. Cobb, Collwel~ Isaac Jons (1743), Eli Colton (from July, 1744) *41 LR II 11 STAFFORD, CONNECTICUT page twenty-nine voted to ordain him on Nov. 1st, which they presumably did. As the ordaining council they invited Mr. Colton (probably the candi­ date's father, pastor at West Hartford), Mr. Wadsworth (1st Church, Hartford), Mr. Whitman (2nd Hartford-or Farming­ ton?), Mr. Steel (Tolland), Mr. White (Bolton-or Windham?), :.~ Mr. Fuller, and a Mr. Weyman with a delegate apiece. This time not the whole town, but a special committee, was appointed "to take Care to provoid victals and Drink and vende it of (f) to people as they shall need it upon the Time of ye ordaination."

Early in the first year of Colton's ministry the first low mur­ mur of denominationalism was heard in Stafford. Up to this time a man of St~fford would have been much puzzled how to answer if asked to what denomination he belonged. He would probably have answered, "Why, the Church of Stafford." Yes, but what denom­ ination? If he had been about a bit, he might have replied, "Pres­ betearin, I guess." But that would have been wrong; there was only one real Presbyterian Church in Connecticut at that time­ at Milford. The Church of Stafford was Congregational, but it still had no need of a label. But in February 1745 the town made its first recognition of any dissenting minority by voting "that if the Churchmen Bring a Recipt from thear minister The Colector may Cross thear Rats." "Crossing rats" may suggest a biological experiment until we recognize "rats" as an illiterate spelling of "rates." The proper translation, then, is: the tax collector may cross out the church-tax for such members of the Church of England as can bring receipts from a minister of that church signifying that they have contributed to its support. Unfortunately for our opin­ ion of their magnanimity, this liberal vote was annulled at the next town meeting.

During Colton's ministry the socially important matter of allot­ ment of pews in the meeting-house was finally decided. Four years earlier a committee had been appointed to decide which families were worthy of the privilege of erecting and owning pews. But in March 1746 their work toward that end was "disannulled," doubtless because of petty jealousies. This time it was "Voted to Build the pews and one family sit In a pew and Those that have pews to Build thear pews on thear own Cost and Enjoy thear own page thirty THE FIRST CHURCH OF pews they and thear heirs for Ever." *42 Out of sad experience they chose this time an out-of-town committee to do the assigning: "Voted that Mr. Zebulon Weste *43 and Deecon Tyler Boath of Tollond and Decon Mirick *44 of Willington be a Commjtt to seate the pews in Stafford Meeting ..... and they that own the sd pews to Be at the Charge thearo£. Voted that the Instructions for sd Comjtt are age Dignity and Estate." *45 On those weighty standards fourteen heads of families were chosen: *46 Rateable Estate, 1745 Cap/t Dan/ll Blogget 83-14-0 2. Mr. Robert White 86-12-0 3. Mr. Ames Walbridge 104-0-0 4. Mr. Josiah Blogget 69-8-0 5. Mr. Cornelous Davis 105-15-0 6. Capt. Moses Fuller 102-0-0 7. Mr. Steven Cross 60-0-0 8. Mr. Jacob Green 72-15-0 9. Mr. John Pasko 66-0-0 10. Mr. Richard Laird 88-0-0 11. Mr. William Orcutt 94-0-0 12. Mr. Sam/ll Lilley 44-0-0 13. Mr. Josiah Converse 65-0-0 14. Mr. J osiph Kent 79-0-0 To what extent the committee was governed by "estate" may be seen from the right-hand column above, taken from a list of "Ratible Estate" made the previous year. *47 The committee recommended that the town decide the final number and size of the pews and that each man in the order they had determined should choose his pew's position. Two pews were added to these fourteen

*42 LR II 13 *43 town clerk of Tolland 1736-70 *44 Jo)ln Merrick, first town clerk, first deacon, and chief man among the founders of Willington. *45 LR II 13 Elsewhere this process was called "dignifying the seats" from the importance of the "dignity" or station of the occupants in deter­ mining where each should sit *46 Of these men Robert White and Josiah Converse are buried in the Old Stafford Street Cemetery; Cornelius Davis in the older West Stafford Hill Cemetery; Ames Walbridge's wife is buried in the Leon­ ard District . Cemetery. The names of White, Davis, and Orcutt are signed to Stafford Town Patent, 1729. *47 LR II 150. In the list of estates 24 heads of families are rated at 50 L or more; 65 at less than 50 L. In awarding pews as seen above, thirteen in the higher bracket were granted pews; only one in the lower bracket. STAFFORD, CONNECfiCUT pag11 thirty-one by !he town; one was awarded in 1748 to Daniel Col bourn, the other to David Orcutt. In 1759 a gallery pew was awarded to a group of eight men, obviously men without families. The first record of a sexton dates from 1747. He was called Kee-Keeper of the Meeting House. His duties were "to Lock and unlock and to Sweepe the same a often as is necessary." For this Service he received one pound a year ! In 1753 Samuel Lilley, one of the pew-holders, was given "Liberty to set a Sabbath day house on the highway where it will be Least hurtfull to the Town and Best for the Town." *48 "On the highway" must mean in the common near the meeting-house. A "Sabbaday house" performed a welcome service in those days. People had to have a chance to recover from the three-hour morning service and the chill of the unwarmed church and to fortify them­ selves with food against the equally long afternoon service. In the earliest days they simply went into homes near the church, but week after week for years on end that came to be a burden to the church's neighbors. So separate houses-Sabbath-day houses--came to be built. Tolland had had one for years. In 1728 Tolland voted "to build a house about 20' x 14' near the meeting-house, to accommo­ date the inhabitants living remote from the meeting-house with a place to spend the intermission between services without troubling others." There is no further record of Stafford's Sabbady House, but it is probably safe to assume that the above action was put into effect. Eli Colton's salary rose year by year until in 1755 it amounted to 500 pounds, but its real value probably was little more than the 150 at which he had started. This was the time of inflation due to the last of the French and Indian wars. Colton died June 8, 1756 of the smallpox, *49 "at sea" *SO ( ?) , survived by his widow, Eunice (Higley) Colton, and five sons: Eleazar, Ithamar, Eliakim, Lemuel, and Samuel. Charles Ham­ mond asserts that he was on his way to England to receive re-ordina­ tion by an English bishop into the Church of England. But if he

*48 LR II 21 *49 Woodward's Historical Discourse, p. 7 *50 C. C. Painter, in Tolland County Press for July 20, 1876 page thirty-two THE FIRST CHURCH OF died at sea, how could he have been buried in Stafford? His death is recorded here and the selectmen were instructed to provide fitting grave stones for his grave at the expense of the Town. Such a vote was repeated twelve years later, indicating that it had not been done-and there is no such monument to this day. It seems likely to me that Hammond's source confused Eli Colton with a Mr. (-) Cotton, of Hebron, of whom all this was true, except that it hap­ pened in 1752. From the Inventory of the Estate of Eli Colton in the Con­ necticut State Library we can form a vivid picture of his appear­ ance in the pulpit. He possessed "a wig-10 s" and a "great coat- 13 s", also silver knee and shoe buckles, and "black britches." He would wear his clerical wig on all formal occasions, certainly in the pulpit, and his "small-clothes," worn by any gentleman of the 18th century: black knee-breech~s of velvet or satin with conspicuous silver knee-buckles, long stockings, probably two pairs at once, and shoes with silver buckles. Whether he wore a frilled shirt front or the severe Puritan bands, the inventory does not reveal. For the farming he had to do to eke out his salary, and probably also for use in the saddle, the minister like every other farmer had his pair of "leather britches". There is never any mention of a parsonage on Stafford Street. John Graham lived on lot 21 in the house built for him and given to him by the Town. Seth Payne owned his own house in lot 14, Eli Colton his own in lot 16. John Willard owned part of lot 9, where he lived first in the "mean-looking hut" mentioned by John Adams and later in the mansion still standing there. Some of the later ministers appear to have lived with the Grant families and the Larneds in their capacious houses. STAFFORD, CONNECTICUT page thirty-three

CHAPTER IV

Divisions and Schisms

The half century following Eli Colton's death saw great cl anges in Stafford-d1anges that deeply affected the ecclesiastical picture. That same fifty years is exactly the term of office of Dr. John Willard. But in order to see why the First Church dwindled in spite of the labors of this best minister she ever had, it is neces­ sary to review the founding of four other churches in Stafford. First there came the Baptists. The seeds of the five different Baptist churches that have been in Stafford at one time or another came in by way of Tolland from the Whitefield revival which swept New England like wildfire in the 1740's, resulting in a sect at first called the "Separates" or the "Separatists." A Separatist elder. \Vait Palmer, made converts in Tolland around 1750, most famous among them Shubael Stearns, who soon migrated to North Caro­ lina and founded the first Baptist churches there. But before he left he immersed and ordained Noah Alden of Stafford. The lat­ ter gathered around himself a considerable church at Square Pond (now dignified with the more euphonious name, Crystal Lake, a translation of the supposed Indian name: W abaquasset), meeting somewhere close to the tiny old cemetery on Boyer's Crossing Road. In February, 1760, the town "Voted that no Rates be made for the Support of the minister in this Town on those people that Call them Salves Babtist that are freed by Law." But four years later twenty­ six of that church still had to petition the General Assembly for exemption from church taxes. In the following excerpt I have printed in italics the names of the men known or surmised to have been residents of Stafford. "Noah Alden, Thomas Eaton, Daniel Markum, Josiah Drake, Uriah Richardson, Elias Lee, Nathaniel Monger, Edward Cobb, Noah Cross, John Ward, Joseph Chamberlain Joseph Webster, John Butler, Nathaniel Drake, Isaac Holmes, John Lindsey, Seth Washburn, Daniel Mark hum, Jr., Isaac Heath, Leonard Pike, Ger­ shom Richardson, David Washburn, Christopher Thresher, Nathan Aldridge J osi

Stafford, some of the Town of Willington, some of the town of Tolland and some of the town of Windsor-representing that they are of the Baptist Church or Society who attend Publick Worship and Ordinances in the said town of Stafford under the pastoral care of the said Noah Alden who is their Elder or minister" *51-ask exemption from church taxes. It was granted "during the time public worship shall be con­ stantly attended in any of said towns mentioned in said memorial." *52 Of the further history of that church almost nothing is known, except that one of the several Jonathan Pasco's who have lived in Stafford, a lay preacher, was its pastor for a great many years, down at least to 1821, perhaps to 1850 ,when a Jonathan Pasco died. But as late as 1844, 30 rods ( 1/5 of an acre) was leased to the Square Pond Ecclesiastical Society for a burying ground for 1000 years. *53 That can only be the small cemetery on Boyer's Cros­ sing where Jonathan Pasco is buried. One would like to know who the lessee is for the next 902 years, and who the nominal owner is! The only other Baptist church before 1800 met on Village Hill, where David Lilliebridge was the only pastor. That church was founded sometime between _1759 and 1789 and was absorbed at Lilliebridge's death, Jan. 19, 1831, by the Willington Baptist Church and the Stafford Hollow Church. Lilliebridge's grave is in the Village Hill Cemetery, near which his church must have met. Elder Batchelder *54, the patriarch of Stafford Baptists, says bluntly of these early churches, "We first find a few Baptists joining with un­ converted men of all principles and of no principle in a so-called Baptist Society, the grand object of which was to escape paying parish taxes." But he softens this harsh judgment by adding, "While societies were liable to be composed of such members, it is to the credit of our fathers that they were careful to preserve the rights of the church." In this same fifty years falls the development of West Stafford and the formation of a second "Church of the Standing Order," from which there soon split off the very first Universalist Church in Connecticut. Because of the size and ruggedness of the town, the founders from the very beginning had intended to set off a

*51 Eccles. Archives of Conn., 2nd Series, V 29 *52 Colonial Rec. XII 271 *53 LR XX 294 ' . I . . . *54 Rev. F. L., pastor, 2nd Bap. Ch. 1854-9 and 1866-99 STAFFORD, CONNECfiCUT page thirty-five second parish as soon as the population should warrant it. Indeed, as early as 1726 they laid out 100 acres in the westward part of the town for the "Presbetearin Ministry." In 1749 the record was changed to read: "for the use and Benefit for the Second presbeter­ ian or Congregationly Church That Shall or may Be geathered in sd Town." Irregular separate services of worship in West Stafford began before 1751, but the same men who had already been taxed for the support of the one minister in the town had to dig into their pockets again to pay for these services in their own neighborhood. Therefore thirty men of West Stafford headed by Corn eli ( u) s Davis complained in a petition to the General Assembly in 1751 that they would be destitute of the gospel, "did we not hire winter preaching with the approbation of the Rev. Mr. Colton and altho we have hired preaching the winter season as a fore sd, yet the Town will not give us any relief." They assert that there were then forty families (•180 souls) in the west half of Stafford, all living at least four miles from the meeting house. A counter-petition was presented from the Town opposing the request on the ground that the town was scarcely able to support one minister. Two men with very illiterate signatures actually signed both the petition and the counter-petition ! But the petition was granted with compromise: they had asked for separate services from October to May 1st, they were granted Dec. 1st to March 31st, and were freed from that proportion-one-third-of their church taxes. While he lived Mr. Colton either preached there also, or hired an assistant to do it. Town Meeting, Feb. 5, 1753: "Voted to raise a Rate of 133£ old Tenor to pay for preaching In The west Parte of the Town to be added to Mr Coltons Rate Bill." *55 The second Parish, or West-Stafford, was set off by the town with approval of the Assembly, May 1761, the boundary being Mid­ dle River. *56 Before May. 1765, the Second Parish had erected its first meeting-house; see Colonial Records, vol XII, p. 397. On Oct. 31, 1764 they called and settled Rev. Isaac Foster, consid­ ering him an orthodox minister. But in 1779 he was deposed for heretical views, which were of a Universalist coloring. But a large

*55 LR II 21 *56 As· a historical curiosity let it be here noted that the West Parish petitioned the Assembly in 1844 to be set off as a separate town. LR XX 262 page thirty-six THE FIRST CHURCH OF majority of the church followed Mr. Foster, who, though deposed, continued to preach in West Stafford until his death in 1807. The Consociation in 1781 branded the followers of Foster as apostates and declared a little group of thirteen men and twelve women to be the true Church of Christ in West Stafford. Until1797 each group used the only meeting-house (opposite the older cemetery on West Stafford Hill) on alternate Sundays, the orthodox minority having no settled minister until they called Calvin Ingals, Oct. 1796. Graduated at Dartmouth, 1792, he performed missionary service in Vt., N. Y., and Penn. ( Diary of Thomas Robbins I 324.) In 1797, therefore, the orthodox petitioned for exclusive use of the church building. By curious arithmetic "the Foster people", the majority, were adjudged to have an interest of $137.75 in the build­ ing, and the orthodox minority one of $276.25. The process was simply this: the assessed valuation of West Stafford (minus the interest of avowed sectaries of other churches) was found to be $9,387.48, of which the forty-six members of the Foster group owned $4680.96; therefore the latter were adjudged to own 4680/ 9387 of the meeting-house. *57 In other words all the dead tim­ ber-ecclesiastically speaking-in the parish was thrown into the Congregational side of the balance. Impeccably legal, but some­ what short of abstract justice! The Foster people sold out their interest and built their own meeting-house SO rods farther south in 1799. That meeting-house had an extremely checkered career for about forty years. *58 In it Mr. Foster continued to preach until about the time of his death, 1807, "since which time," according to Rev. Elliot Palmer (pastor, Second Congregational Church of Stafford, 1834-47), "the society has been dwindling away until, as a Society, it no longer exists (1841)". That building had also housed the Methodists. A curious little book called "The Young Pastor's Wife," written in 1845 by Horace Moulton in memory of his wife, graphically tells the story. Moulton was a Methodist cir­ cuit-rider on the Tolland Circut in the 1820's and 30's. "I also went up to West Stafford, and asked the little class, if they had any place where we could worship Sabbaths. They said

*57 Eccles. Archives, 2nd Ser., IV 77. *58 Local tradition says that the bell of this old church now hangs in the Universalist Ch. in Stafford. This is supported by the date 1800 cast in that bell STAFFORD, CONNECTICUT pag< thirty-seven they could have the Universalist meeting-house. I told them I dare not go in, unless they could get a lease of it, knowing that should God revive his work, it would be a signal for them to turn us out. The Universalists granted them a lease of it for three years. Preaching was immediately commenced, and a revival soon follow­ ed ; it spread into the East parish, and, as the result, the church in the West parish was much enlarged, a new church formed in the East parish, and a respectable meeting-house built near the pool, where the ordinances of the gospel have been administered ever since. In this revival, I should think that forty families of Univer­ salists and N othingarians were converted to God, and they have made good members in the household of faith." The lease here mentioned is on record in Stafford Land Rec­ ords, Vol. XVI p. 481, dated Oct. 3, 1829. The First Universa­ list Society-"First" because the Second Univertalist Society was already flourishing in the Union House on Stafford Street-was represented by its committee: Isaac F. Cady, Garner Cady, and Pardon Davis ; the Methodist Episcopal Society in Stafford by Salmon McKinster, Orrin Harwood, and E. W. Bugby. The lease was to run for three years, allowing the Methodists the use of the meeting-house on alternate Sundays. The consideration was $40, the Universalists agreeing to buy and install a stove worth $40. Writing in 1841 Elliot Palmer says that meeting-house had been "recently" sold and torn down, but its foundation can still be seen. The little Methodist "class" had fought a hard struggle for existence in Stafford for forty years before the date of this lease. The main obstacle was the understandable opposition of the parish ministers of the "Standing Order." Their standpoint is vividly set forth in the following letter from John Willard to Dr. Nathan Williams of Tolland: Stafford, May 20, 1795 Rev. and dear Sir, I understand, by a Message, that you desire me to give some general Account of the Conversation I had formerly with some Itinerants of the Methodist Denomination, who officiated in this Place.- ! shall premise, that in June 1791, Mr. Smith, having been ordained a Deacon in the Chh of the Methodists, came into this Parish; and without consulting me, and without my knowing that page thirty-eight THE FIRST CHURCH OF he was in the Society, preached a Lecture: When I understood it, I observed to a certain Man within the Society, whom I found affected to these Itinerant Preachers, that I should be glad to have an Interview at my House, with any of the Gentlemen of this Or­ der, who might come into the Parish: I suppose Mr. Smith was made acquainted with this general Invitation. Accordingly, after he had preached two Lectures, as I understood, and appointed a third, he made me a visit, in Company with one of his Friends. We soon entered upon Conversation concerning such an Itinerancy as the Methodists practise. I objected to it. Mr. Smith endeavoured to defend it: The Arguments made Use of on each Side, it is need­ less, Sir, to mention particularly to you. Mr. Smith attempted to evade the Force of tbe Arguments from the Passages of Scripture which I alledged. In the Course of the Conversation, I put this Question to Mr. Smith, vizt. "Whether he allowed that the Churches of New Eng­ land are Churches of Christ ?",He granted that "they are;" but added, that "they were fallen into a Laodicean State." I then pointed out the ill Consequences of such a Mode of Itinerancy as was practised above SO years ago by a celebrated Preacher from England, and many of our own Divines, and is now practised by the Methodists, vizt. Preaching where they please, and when they please; at least, where they can be admitted at the Invitation of any one Person, or a few etca.-going from Town to Town, from State to State, where there are fixed Ministery etca. I observed to this Purport, that by such a Mode of Procedure, the Churches had received Wounds, from which they had not re­ covered to this Day-that it laid the Foundation for many ground­ less, and sinful Schisms, and Separations etca. Mr. Smith observed to this Purport, that he had a Right to preach upon the Invitation of Private Persons, in any Place, where there was one, or more unconverted Sinners. At the same Time, he disclaimed the Idea of promoting Schisms, and Separations from Churches-said, it was not his Design; and averred, that his great Design was, to call Sinners to Repentance, and Faith in Christ; or to call Sinners to Christ.- However, he appeared soon to forget himself ; He not only pursued dividing Measures, by carrying on separate Meetings, con­ trary to the Mind of the Pastor, the Body of the Church, and of many respectable Members of the Congregation; but undertook to baptize Children in this Society-to form and constitute a Class, as I understand; and to perform all Ministerial Acts, which are allowed to a Deacon, according to the Methodist Plan: How to reconcile these Things with his express Declaration to me at my STAFFORD, CONNECTICUT page thirty-ni11e

House, I am at a Loss: His Conduct appeared inconsistent with his explicit Profession. A considerable Time after the Conference with Mr. Smith, I had a Short Interview with Mr. Raynor, a Methodist Preacher then in this circuit.- Amongst other Things, I proposed to him this Question, "Whether the Ministers of the New England Churches are Gospel Ministers?" He granted , "they are;" but added, "He believed, they were not all regenerate Men; neither, according to his Senti­ ment, were all the Methodist Ministers." He was of Opinion, that some of the latter, as well as the former, were not good men. ote that John Willard does not use the adjective "Congrega­ tional" in the two places where we would expect it today. The further history of all those churches lies outside the scope of this paper, but the funeral of Isaac Foster, the renegade pastor of the Second Congregational Church, belongs to it as throwing light upon the character of Calvin Ingals, who was later for three years joint acting pastor of the First and Second Congregational Churches. When Isaac Foster died in 1807, for some unknown reason, perhaps for economy's sake, the minister chosen to officiate at the funeral was none other than Foster's bitter and bigoted enemy, Calvin Ingals! Ingals' remarks at the funeral have not been handed down, but their uncharitable tenor may readily be inferred from the hymn that he read in the service:

Behold the aged sinner goes, Laden with guilt and heavy woes; Down to the regions of the dead, With endless curses on his head.

The dust returns to dust again ; The soul, in agonies of pain, Ascends to God, not there to dwell, But hears her doom, and sinks to hell.

Far in the depths of darkness dwell, The land of horror and despair; Justice hath built a dismal hell, And laid its store of vengeance there." page forty THE FIRST CHURCH OF

To the credit of the Congregationalists, tradition says that they were scandalized by this specimen of their former pastor's bigotry. In due time Calvin Ingals was also gathered to his fathers. \Vas it ironic chance or some lugubrious humor that caused Ingals to be buried beside Foster? At any rate there they lie, orthodox and heterodox, maligner and maligned, side by side. Still Foster had the last word: from the words on his tombstone, "Gainst popes and popelings I did war declare," 'popelings' points an accusing finger toward the tomb of his fellow-sleeper. STAFFORD, CONNECTICUT page forty-one

CHAPTER V

John Willard, D. D .

The First Ecclesiastical Society evidently sprang automatically into existence when the Second Parish was created; until that time the Town itself had been the Ecclesiastical Society. But the first book of records of the First Society is lost. The first mention of such a 'lociety is of the year 1772, in whirh year, so Woodward says, the Society decided to build a new meeting-house on Stafford Street. The building committee was not appointed until Sept. 6, 1774, but no \ecord of it got into the Town records because there was weightier matter afoot: the very next day a town meeting adopted the fateful boycott on British goods, "an agrement for the Non-Consumption of British manufactured Goods and mar­ chandise." *59 Through the hard times of the Revolution and its aftermath that meeting-house was built, from 1775 on. Part of the first meeting-house was taken down to f~:~rnish material for the new. *60 In 1794 it was still incomplete and "not at all suitable for a place of worship. Swallows nested among the naked beams and joists of the roof." *61 "At first they met in it for worship without the benefit of the light of heaven, save what might beam in through the openings, through which also the cold urged its way. For a long time it was simply covered for a shelter; and for more than a year there was preaching without a pane of glass in the house; when, out of com­ passion to the minister, they contrived to raise means to glaze one half of the pulpit window .... How ready they were, if they might but assemble with their families for divine worship, to sit in cold o.nd dampness and darkness, upon rough boards, and with no com­ fort but such as they felt in their souls!" *62 This building stood "4 rods E. of the South East Corner of Josiah Converse's Homlott" *63-that is, near the center of the

*59 LR IV p. VIIIf, two long pages of fiery patriotism, in which for the first time the words "British" and "Amiricans" occur. *60 John A. Larned in Tolland County Press, May 22, 1873 *61 Memoirs of Sidney Willard, p. 243 *62 Woodward's Historical Address, 1843 *63 Eccles. Archives, 1st Series, X, also XIV 126 page forty-two THE FIRST CHl'RCH OF

Street, opposite the old Hyde Tavern, probably facing south. It was used until the third building was ready in 1840. Until the end of Chapter III we had followed the chronological order of events, forsaking it there at the death of Eli Colton in 1756. At that time Stafford had had three pastorates of eight, six, and twelve years, respectively, each of which they had hoped would last a life-time Colton's technically did. In their fourth minister, whose pastorate was four times as long as the next longest in that church, they were finally to have that hope fulfilled. In December, 1756, Stafford called a man from one of America's most distinguished families, who was to serve them full fifty years. That man was John Willard, a Harvard graduate of 1751, and a great-grandson of the famous Samuel Willard (theological writer, pastor of Old South Church, Boston, and acting president of Harvard 1701-7). In his letter of acceptance he mentions the war then being fought as one reason for his willingness to accept the small salary offered him. He was ordained March 23, 1757. The Stafford Public Library has a copy of the sermon preached at his ordination by his uncle, Thomas Frink, M. A., pastor of a church at Rutland (now Barre), Mass. Four days after his ordination Willard began the earliest book of Stafford Church Records that is known ever to have existed. The original of that book has now disappeared, but fortunately the Connecticut Society, Colonial Dames of America had a copy made of it some years ago. That copy is in the library of the Connecticut Historical Society, Hartford, and a copy of that copy is kept with the records of the Stafford Springs Congregational Church in the vault of the Stafford Savings Bank. It records with meticulous care baptisms, marriages, deaths, accessions, etc., from 1757 to Willard's death, with a few scattered entries down to 1817. But it reveals very little of the character of John Willard, who wrote it, except his passion for methodical exactness. These records in­ dicate that the Town clerks of those days were less meticulous in keeping vital records than the more methodical ministers of the time. Only about half of the entries in the Church Vital Records are to be found in the Town Records. Because of their great value to genealogists these records are soon to be published by the New England Historic Genealogical Register. The given names are STAFFORD, CONNECTICUT page forty-three worth noticing. The following "confession-names," for instance, in which a whole theological proposition is implied, could come straight from the Salem or Plymouth of 300 years ago: Fear, Ex­ perience, Submit, Desire, Hopestill, Content, Patience, Prudence, Consider, Pardon. (The separation of the genders is puzzling; all are borne by women except the last two, which are masculine.) Also Puritan are the now rare Hebrew names from the Old Testa­ ment: Bezaleel, Bathsheba, Susa (for Susanah ?) , Keturah, Tirzah, Axsy (Achsah), Tryphena (not Hebrew, but Biblical), Zadoc, Zimri, Azubah. Later than the Puritan names come the fanciful and the romantic names of the early 19th century : Orrenda (Orin­ da), Roxa (Roxana), Marsylvia, Lucina, Sabrina, Malynda, Dalla, Boadicea, Datdona, Orrilla, Arshibel (for Archibald?). The young Mr. Willard, twenty-five years old when he came, soon took unto himself a wife. She was Lydia, third daughter of Joseph and Mary (Pynchon) Dwight, of Great Barrington, Mass. They were married in Stafford Nov. 24, 1758. He and his family lived for fifty years opposite the Grant house, in lot 9, at first in "a mean-looking hut," as John Adams *64 described it when he visited Willard there in 1771. On the same site he built about 1790 the fine old house still standing there, known to the older residents as the Chester Scripture house, now the home of Mrs. Maude Smith. In this house through most of his ministry Willard kept a preparatory school that trained several distinguished men. One of them published his memoirs and thereby preserved the memory of that one-man preparatory school besides giving the best description of Stafford in the 1700's that has come down to our time. The writer was Sidney Willard, the son of John Willard's brother ] oseph, president of Harvard 1781-1804. President Willard saw fit to have all three of his sons, Augustus, Sidney, and Samuel, pre­ pared for Harvard by his younger brother in the Connecticut wil­ derness in spite of the excellent masters they could have had at Cambridge. His judgment was vindicated by the brilliant career of Sidney, who after three years with his uncle John on Stafford Street graduated from Harvard at eighteen, was librarian of Har­ vard at twenty, and at twenty-seven, and for twenty-five years thereafter, professor of Hebrew and Oriental Languages in Har-

*64 Diary of John Adams page for~y- four THE FIRST CHURCH OF vard, also for a time professor of English Literature and Latin, often a member of the Massachusetts legislature, and once mayor of Cambridge. He says that his uncle rarely had more than three pupils and on an average not so many as that. There were only four others besides the Willard nephews in the three years Sidney was here.

Others of John Willard's pupils probably also achieved fame and distinction. Careful search has revealed the following partial list of his pupils; it is derived mainly from the correspondence of Dr. Willard with the president and faculty of Dartmouth College, which is in the hands of Mrs. H. B. Rathbone, New Rochelle, N. Y., whom the Latins would have succinctly called an abneptis (great­ great-granddaughter) of John Willard. (Dartmouth College and Mr. Perry T. Rathbone, an adnepos of John, have more of the cor­ respondence.)

Ezekiel Colbourn of Stafford before 1778, Samuel Fuller, Stafford, before 1781, Zachariah Green, Brookfield, before 1781, Joseph Blodgett, Stafford, before 1779, Willard's own three sons, John, Joseph, and Samuel, Josiah Carpenter and Abishai Alden, both of Stafford, before 1783, prob. Stephen Williams, Jr., before 1789, prob. Zachariah Weston, Josiah Willard Gibbs, the three sons of John's brother, Joseph Willard-Augustus, Sidney, and Samuel, all about 1790- (--) Foster, son of Sen. Theodore Foster of Providence, about 1791, (--) Parsons, son of Zenas Parsons of Springfield, about 1791, "two boys from southern Connecticut," about 1791, and Hawley Dwight, about 1797. The worldly gain from the school to Dr. Willard must have been very slight. In writing to the father of a prospective pupil in 1791 he says:

"My usual terms have been 6 s/ pr Week, for Board and In­ struction; under Board we include Washing, but not Wood and Candles: I have with me two Nephews from Cambridge, who will find their Proportion of these last Articles."

A former pupil writing from Dartmouth encloses greetings to "your Iattin scholars." Willard himself often speaks of his pupils as having "studied the languages" with him. We therefore infer that the curriculum was mainly linguistic: Latin first, then Greek, and, for some, Hebrew. STAFFORD, CONNECTICUT page forty-five

Some insight into the mind of John Willard as preacher and teacher may be gained from the inventory of his library at his death. *65 He had doubtless already given away many of the choicest items to his minister-sons. Yet there were left 150 titles, probably well over 300 volumes-a considerable library for a prea­ cher of the Connecticut backwoods in the 18th century. There were works in Greek, Hebrew, and Latin, especially in Greek. The number of Greek grammars indicates that his pupils must have gvne to college well grounded in that language. The presence of a Septuagint and a Hebrew Bible testifies that his sermon prepara­ tion was not limited to the uncertainties of the English translation. There were many volumes of solid commentaries and sermons, his famous ancestor's "Body of Divinity", of course, also Willard's "Israel's True Safety" (also by Samuel Willard?), several v0lumes by Jonathan E9wards, Locke "On Human Understanding," 9 vol­ umes of The Spectator, Johnson's and Ainsworth's English Dic­ tionaries. There were enough non-theological works to trdicate that their owner's mind was not imprisoned within hi.s own specialty. The pinch of poverty in the Willard household is clearly re­ flected. John and Lydia Willard had »even children, of whom two died in infancy. They were: 1) John, bap. Nov. 25, 1759, grad. Yale, 1782 (pastor at Lunenberg, Vt., 1803--?. By degrees he became a physician. D. Lunenberg, 1826) ordained to the pastoral care of the Church in Meriden as colleague pastor to John Hubbard June 21, 1786. The sermon was preached by his father, John Willard, A. M.: it was published by Woodward and Green, Middletown. In it the father quotes the Body of Divinity of their ancester. This sermon is the only known publication by John Sr. except his charge to the candidate at the ordination of Wm. L. Strong, of Somers, April 3, 1805, appended to the published ordination sermon by Rev. Crosman. 2) Joseph, bap. June 7, 1761, grad. Harvard, 1784, be­ came a minister (Wilbraham, Mass., and Lancaster, N. H.). 3) Samuel, bap. March 27, 1763, d. Oct. 16, 1765. 4)Josiah, bap. March 17, 1765, d. July 11, 1766; he and the preceding are buried near their father in the Old Stafford Street Cemetery. 5) Samuel again, bap. Jan. 4, 1767, grad. Harvard 1787, M. A. Harvard, date unknown, M. A. Yale, honoris causa, 1810. He taught school at Keene, N. H., became a physician, with his brother-in-law, Samuel Alden, established a pharmacy on Stafford Street on the site later

*65 Staff. Probate Records VI 323 page fflrty-S1x THE FIRST CHURCH OF occupied by the Grant Store. Willard's establishment was burned to the ground about 1801. In 1803 Samuel Willard built the first Springs House, which made Stafford Spring for decades a national­ ly known spa (see, for instance, Edward Everett Hale, My Double and How He Undid Me). He married Abigail Perkins of Ashford. In 1804 he read a paper on the qualities of the Stafford mineral waters before the Connecticut Medical Association, which is prob­ ably the same paper now preserved as an article from the Connec­ ticut Courant in the Stafford Public Library. (Died Cincinnati, 0., Feb. 16, 1820 6) Lydia, bap. Jan. 8, 1769, unmarried in 1811. 7) Abigail, bap. March 17, 1771, m. Samuel Alden in Hanover, N. H., 1801. So large a family meant that Willard's thirty acres on Stafford Street had to be worked to the· limit to provide a self-sufficiency of food for his family and pupils, and clothing for the family ::m a salary that never exceeded $200 a year, which was "never promptly, and often not fully paid." Yet he managed to send all three of his sons to college. Sidney significantly remarks that when the neph­ ews were the only pupils, fires were seldom kept except in the kit­ chen and the study. Nor did John Willard have the means to go visiting: he had never visited his brother in Cambridge during the dozen or more years of Sidney's young life-for the latter had never met his uncle until he came to study under him. Finally, one school vacation in 1793, John Willard accompanied his nephews home on their three-day horseback pourney. He prepared for it as if he had been going to tour Europe ! Sidney describes him thus:

Reverend John Willard was fifty-eight years of age when I and my younger brother were first put under his care. He was tall, erect, slender, of a grave benignant countenance, and care-worn in expression, not from a restless temperament or unreasonable anx­ iety or distrustful forebodings, but from the hardships of his lot. Economy with him was an imperious necessity, but never impaired his kindness, his generosity, his all-embracing courtesy and charity. Every body in his parish was felt by him to be a neighbor, and be­ yond this he gave to the term its widest Christian extension.

Willard's distinguished services were recognized in 1803 by Yale, which conferred upon him the D. D. degree. So far as I can learn he was the only minister of Stafford ever to receive the D. D. while serving here. Nearby Monson Academy also honored him: STAFFORD, CONNECTICUT page f arty-seven

When Monson Academy received its charter from the legisla­ ture of Massachusetts, his name was placed first on the original list of trustees, though his residence was in another state, and he was the first president of the corporation, holding the office till his death. *66

The last anecdote from his life may contain the immediate cause of his death:

When Rev. Dr. Ely of Monson was ordained Dec. 7, 1806, the two oldest members of the council were Rev. Dr. Willard of Staf­ ford and his delegate, Deac. Jonathan Whitaker. They rode on horse-back from their homes in Stafford Street on the morning of that day, which was very cold, and on their arrival at Monson, their locks were covered with frost. Dr. Willard was in feeble health, but he delivered,. the charge to the candidate, which was one of rare excellence. The services were held in the church unwarmed by stoves, and cold as a bam. *67

John Willard died Feb. 16, 1807, not without his sorrows, but still the grand old man of Stafford, almost SO years installed pastor, and more than SO years acting pastor of the Mother Church of Stafford. After the lapse of more than a century's time the oldest natives of Stafford still speak of "Priest Willard," by which affec­ tionate term he was probably known in his later years. The epitaph on his red sandstone table-grave in the Old Street Cemetery, though written by his children, does not exaggerate.

Sacred to the memory of the Rev. John Willard DD. for near­ ly SO years pastor of the first Ecclesiastical society in Stafford. In him the christian graces of meekness, humility, prudence and char­ ity shone conspicuous: endowed by nature with strong mental pow­ ers which were improved by education and unwearied application to theological studies he was deservedly esteemed an able minister of the new testament. with apostolic fidelity he laboured in the sacred duties of his office; he was an able counseller and much re­ sorted to as such; his piety was unassuming, but sincere; the vari­ ous social duties he discharged with the strictest fidelity. He was

*66 Chas. Hammond in Tolland County Press of June 21, 1877 *67 Chas. Hammond in Tolland County Press of Feb. 10, 1876 page forty-eight THE FIRST CHURCH OF born at Biddeford in the district of Maine Feb. 8th 1733 and died Feb 16th 1807 aged 74 years. *68

With John Willard Old Stafford died.

*68 For the genealogy of the Willards, see Willard Memoir, by Joseph Willard, 1858 and 1913, also Sequel, 1915. Judging by the intimacy with the Willards revealed in John Adams' Diary I think it likely that both Adams' and Joseph Warren's interest in Stafford were indirectly due to John Willard's presence here. A dramatic local tale about Abijah Wil­ lard is told in the Hammond-Lawson History of Union. p. 113f. Abi­ jah was a distant Tory kinsman of John. STAFFORD, CONNECTICUT page fO

CHAPTER VI

Low Ebb

The lowest ebb of the Congregational Church in Stafford-as in this country--came in the decade following Willard's death. It was the period of so-called "Enlightenment" and individualism. "Enlightenment" was the slogan of the intellectual and spiritual aspect of the French Revolution. It was the parallel in the intel­ lectual and spiritual sphere to the rebellion of the French masses against political authority. They made a clean sweep of it and re­ belled not only against kings and aristocracy but against all author­ ity: the Church, the Bible, traditional morality, and conventional science. As they enthroned the individual man in politics, so they deified the individual intellect - Reason, as they called it. It took ten to twenty years for the rationalistic ideals of the French Revo­ lution to penetrate into the American masses. Tom Paine's "Age of Reason," in 1794, helped prepare the way for it. The most vio­ lent symptom of this penetration was the great split of the Congre­ gational churches of Massachusetts into Unitarian and Congrega­ tional. That split took place largely in this decade. Those early Unitarians regarded themselves as the champions of liberty and reasonableness against the authoritive "tyranny" of Calvinism and they delivered all right of decision on points of belief to the sover­ eign individual-that is, to his intellect. To a lesser degree the rise of Universalism was a symptom of the same process. Unitarianism never won many avowed converts in Connecticut, but the same forces that created Unitarianism in Massachusetts estranged multi­ tudes from the Standing Order in Connecticut. The extreme con­ servatism of Connecticut toward disestablishing the Congregational Church was another powerful factor that drove thousands of peo­ ple to leave it for the churches in which contributions were purely voluntary. It was not until the new State Constitution of 1818 that the Congregational order was entirely disestablished by the abolition of state taxation for the Congregational parish churches. But by that time the former unity of the Connecticut churches had already been hopelessly destroyed. page fifty THE FIRST CHURCH OF

Even before Dr. Willard's death the church was in difficulties, as the earliest surviving records of the First Ecclesiastical Society let us see from 1803 onward. In 1804 there was dissension of some kind in the Society that led some to withdraw from it-and probably from the Church as well. Dr. Willard alludes to the trouble in a letter to his brother Joseph written Sept. 7, 1804: Our parochial Affairs still remain in a disagreeable Situation. Whether Things will take a more favorable Turn is still problem­ atical. And it is easy to surmise that, writing about the same time of his father's experience in Biddeford, Me., he was partly speaking out of his own experience : ... with all his Goodn. some of his Parishioners treated him ill, it may be even for his Fidelity towds. m. his Pastoral Rela­ tion. Even St. Paul experienced a similar Trial; & it need not yn. [then] seem strange if other minrs. so much inferior to the Apos. shd. receive ill Usage from a vicious & ungrateful [World.1 In that same year the Society requested Dr. Willard to con­ tinue his services "for the present." The old man was probably in feeble health, but the main trouble seems to have been lack of funds. Within two years more the society was in such desperate straits that it asked the General Assembly for permission to hold a lottery. There is no record that permission was given or that the society found other financial relief, for a few months later the committee approached the aged John Willard, in the fiftieth year of his min­ istry in Stafford, with a saddening request: "Whereas the sd So­ ciety are reduced to so few in number" they asked Dr. Willard to "desist from preaching and supplying his pulpit from Nov 1 ensuing till ne.."t Spring, if he will relinquish his Salary for said time." But before spring came again he died in this involuntary retirement. His widow (his second wife, Mrs. Hannah Fiske, widow of Rev. Dr. Nathan Fiske of Brookfield, whom he married in 1801) claimed $1000 back salary, of which about $200 was finally paid by sale of land. A further glimpse into the desperate state of the Society's finances is given by the fact that the annual auction of pews owned by the society had brought in $20 in 1806, but only $4.55 in 1811. Since pews in an unused church would have no value at all, we can STAFFORD, CONNECTICUT page fifty-Of\e conclude that services of some kind were being held in 1811, but there was no resident minister of any denomination on Statford Street from 1807 to 1817, and except for the years 1813-15 there was not even a stated supply. For those three years the First and Second (West Stafford Hill) Churches united in hiring the Calvin Ingals mentioned above to preach on alternate Sundays in both churches. Mr. Ingals, a graduate of Dartmouth ( 1792) had been stated supply at Union, Conn., 1793-4 and was the second pastor of the Second Church of Stafford, 1796-1803. At least part of the time between 1803 and 1813 he was resident in West Stafford as a farmer, there being no pastor. *69 The First Church was so feeble m 1813-14 that there was scarcely a male member left. *70 In fact it came perilously close to extinction in'- 1811.

"In the summer of 1811 an effort was made to obtain [for the Baptists] the Parish Meetinghouse in the Street, which was then probably unoccupied, or occupied only a part of the time but there were objections on the part of the owners of the house and there­ fore the project failed." *71 Of this the Baptist records say: "July 5, 1811 Voted to make en­ quiry in to the propriety of our meeting in the parish Meetinghouse . . . . Voted to choose a commity to hold conference with the pres­ beterian commity respecting the above article." Three d::~ys later "the above commity reported that they have attended to the business and have found no objections to our meeting in the meeting house." But another committee, appointed Aug. 1, 1811, for the same pur­ pose, "Found that there ware objections to our meeting there." Deacon Larned says that the majority opposed to this action was only one vote! The Baptists, somewhat incorsistl"ntly with their principles at that time-they abhorred all 'contact between Church and State, even regarding voting in national elec•ions as question­ able-had recourse to law in a petition to the G~neral Assembly. The Congregational Society replied lVhy 8, 1812 by voting "to

*69 He was paid by the Missionary Society of Conn. as a home mis­ sionary in Vermont and N. Y. State 1803-11, but Ingalls performed a baptism in West Stafford in 1806 and conducted the funeral of Isaac Foster in 1807. See Eccl. Archives, 2nd Series, VI 58b, 78 abc, etc. *70 John A. Larned, Tolland County Press for May 22, 1873 •71 F. L. Batchelder, Historical Sermon, 1859 page fifty-two THE FIRST CHURCH OF choose an Agen to oppose a petition from the Dissenters to the General Assembly praying for Liberty to introduce into :he Meeting House a Clergyman of their own faith and persuasion." Naturally this agent had no great difficulty in persuading the Assembly to prevent the loss of one of its own establi:>hed churches, even though it was now a minority in its own parish. The Baptist Church here spoken of was the Second Baptist Church of Christ in Stafford, the same that now centers in Stafford Hollow. It has the honor of being the first chu:-ch organized within the present Borough of Stafford Springs. The original meeting for organization was held April 20, 1809 at Samuel Bloss's hcuse, which stood until about twenty years ago on the N. 'vV. corner of Furnace Ave. and High St. opposite the Johnson Mill. Elder Samuel Bloss, Jr., was the first pastor, 1810-14; in 1814 he was preaching in the Congregational Church at Union. For seven or eight years they had no meeting-house, but met in variou:; homes, uc;ually the Bloss house, Jasper Hyde's on Stafford Street, Jacob Leonard's home in the "Leonard District," and the John Baker home. Finally they acquired minority rights to a meeting-honse in a way that is unique in Stafford history. Some of their memhers, as individuals, not as a church, participated in erecting an into:!rdenominational meeting­ house on Stafford Street, known as the "Union House." Elder Batchelder says, "The 'Union House' in the Street did not belong to any Society, but to stockholders." The majority of the stockhol­ ders later organized as the (Second) Universalist Church. The legally required permission to build this meeting-house was granted by Stafford Town Meeting June 26, 1815 *72: "Voted that liberty be granted by this town that a meeting house may be built on the easterly side of the broad Street (so called) about as far north as the North Line of Jasper Hyde home lot and so near the east line of sd Street as not to incumber the Turnpike Travel and not nearer then 18 rods of the old meeting house [i. e. of the second building of the First Congregational Society l." The building was dedicated Nov. 14, 1816, the principal parts of the service, if not all, being taken by Universalists. The sermon was preached by the Rev. Hosea Ballou I, of Salem, Mass., one of the foremost founders of American Universalism. This meeting­ house stood in Stafford Street, facing west, to the east of the now-

•72 LR XI, p. V STAFFORD, CONNECTICUT page fifty-three travelled road 396 feet (24 rods) north of the north line of the cross-road at "Goodell's corner"--conclusive proof that the second Congregational meeting-house on Stafford Street was within the space between the cross-road and an east-west line six rods farther north. The rights of the respective denominational groups repre­ sented among the stockholders were unknown to Elder Batchelder in 1859, but Mrs. Morrall *73 must have had the subscription­ paper itself before her when she quoted from it in 1904: "We, the subscribers, being desirous to promote the interest of the Redeemer's Kingdom of the cause of the Christian religion as far as in our power, and believing that it would be beneficial to religious and civil society that a respectable meeting house be built and finished in the first society in Stafford, said house to be made and erected on the following plan: Said house to be set between the dwelling house of Jasper Hyde's and Elisha Wales' in said town to be the- size of South Brimfield meeting house. Each de­ nomination is to have the right and privilege to occupy said house in proportion to their subscription for building the same, if they shall choose, that is to say, each denomination may occupy said house annually ior religious worship in proportion to their subscrip­ tion to this paper, and if any denomination refuses or neglects to improve said house its proportion for one year, that shall not be a forfeiture of their right or privilege therein, but they may at any future time occupy said house their proportions afforesaid by giving three weeks notice to the other denominations. We there­ fore promise to pay the several sums annexed to our names to Calvin Edson, Esq. Samuel Alden John Bradly William Rice and Samuel Strong...... etc ." The paper was prepared some time before July 22, 1814 and it will be noted that use of the building by at least three denom­ inations is anticipated. Certainly Congregationalists never used it, and there is no evidence that the Methodists ever used it. At any rate it soon became a Universalist meeting-hou e. It is also implied that the Congregational building was in disreputable condi­ tion at the time, a fact confirmed by the vote of the Congregational Society in 1821, "Voted that the situation of the meeting House of the Society calls loudly for painting and some other small repairs." The Universalist Church was formed April 3, 1817, when it or­ dained Hosea Ballou II *74, then twenty years old, a grand-nephew

*73 Mrs. William Morrall, The Press, April 7, 1904 *74 Later became the first president of Tufts College, 1854-61 THE FIRST CHURCH OF

of Hosea I, to be its first pastor. The Universalist Ecclesiastical Society was formed in January, 1818. The first recorded meeting of the Baptists in the Union House was a busi11ess meeting Nov. 20, 1817; from the following April until March) 1820, the Baptists appear from their own records to have held services every other Sunday in the Union House. But by April 1826 they were meet­ ing in two school houses *75, not in the Union House at all. The manuscript History of the Universalist Church says that the Bap­ tists sold out their share in the Union House to the Universalists for $60, but does not say when. The Baptists continued to meet in schools and homes until they built their present place of worship in Stafford Hollow in 1833-the oldest church building now stand­ ing in .Stafford; but it was the sixth church edifice in town. The Universalists met in the Union House on the Street until 1845, when, on Oct. 29th, the present Universalist meeting-house in the Hollow was dedicated. The oldest residents in town can remember the ruined shell of the Union House. Dr. G. P. Bard, of Stafford Springs, has a good photograph of it, and a painting, obviously made from the same photograph, hangs in the Parish Room of the Universalist Church. It was

"a frame structure with a prominent steeple, well supplied with windows [32 in sides and ~ront, perhaps more at the endl, with considerable carving and filigree work, and galleries running around three sides. Thi5 edi­ fice remained standing many years after its use for worship was discontinued, and was frequently visited, some of its ornamentations being carried away by relic hunters." *76

"In 1865 the building was demolished by a violent gale." *77 About 1913 Martin Goodell filled in the foundation hole and built the stones into the adjoining east wall of the Street. The great stone step from the main door may still be seen in the garden of Mrs. Marguerite Cooley at 87 E. Main St., Stafford Springs.

•7:S in "the Village" (Leonard District) and in the Pool District­ probably t\le old brick school that stood on the site of the present Slovak · Lutheran Church. *76 from a letter by Dr. C. W. Biddle in "Hosea Ballou 2nd" by Hosea Starr Ballou •77 from MS History of Stafford Universalist Church STAFFORD, CONNECTICUT page fifty-five

This digression into the history of two other churches was necessary because the names of most of the foundrrs oi both these churches are earlier found on the records of the First Congrega­ tional Church-and because this division helps to explain the great decline of the Congregational Church in these years. page -fifty-six THE FIRST CHURCH OF

CHAPTER VII

R emperation

We have seen that the first "parish church" of Stafford h:1d often been inaccurately called "Presbyterian", or if not inaccur­ ately, at least non-technically. In the period we are about to rec­ ord we shall see the First Church demonstrating its affinity with the Presbyterian denomination by calling two men actually ordained by Presbytery, of whom one declined and one accepted. It is a period of prosperity that we might well call the church's Indian summer. On May 30, 1815, the Society voted to ordain and settle a really Presbyterian minister, one Joel Mann, offering him $500 per annum. "It may be of interest to explain how a man so providentially provided, just when the Society felt able to employ one; whose labors had been so manifestly blessed, should, yet providentially or otherwise, be led to another field. There appeared one Sabbath morning in one of those old pews, what has been described by others than the young minister as a most beautiful young woman, who, as tradition has it, was, from the moment the young minister arose in the desk, most intensely interested, and evidently fascinated. She secured an introduction when the service closed-asked him to the Springs House, where she was stopping, and carried him off, as she had by nature a right to, she being a Wolfe and he but a tender young Mann. Thus tradition, in the shape of a bright old lady who was just then far enough advanced in her teens to take especial interest in the fate of a young minister, explains it. This is the secular side of the story. The more pious rendering of it is, that the young preacher noticed in his congregation one summer morning a young lady who manifested much tender feeling under the sermon. That on inquiry he found her to be a summer boarder at the Springs House, who had come with some distinguished fam­ ilies from Rhode Island, Gov. Collins, de Wolfe, and others. He called Monday morning, as a good pastor should, to follow with a private conversation the impressions produced, and found she had gone by the early coach. He became acquainted with her friends, and when at the end of a few months they returned to Bristol, R. I., he accepted an ur- STAFFORD, CONNECTICUT · pa,g!! fifty-seven

gent invitation to go with them, still intent, it is to be supposed, to converse with her. Met the lady, and married her of course, and was settled as colleague pastor of the church there ...... (Her name was not Wolfe, but Vernon.)" *78 The manifest blessing referred to above in Mann's short stay here was the fact that a revival in 1815 added some sixty members to the church. That brought new hope, even though they had failed to hold the young minister who had been its instrument. So the church applied the next year ( 1816) for the first time for aid from the Domestic Missionary Society, to which the dwindling Society (and Dr. Willard personally, too) had made gifts from 1798-1814. With the help of the Missionary Society the services of Stephen Crosby, Jr., from the Windham Association, were secured during 1816. But the following year, probably on the initiative of the prosperous arld generous Miner Grant, the little church raised a permanent fund-at first mostly pledges, however, on which the donors paid annual interest-of $2775, and were able to settle and ordain Cyrus W. Gray, a graduate of Williams College then serving the church at Washington, Conn. They made him a "settlement" of $150, and gave him $460 annual salary and 20-25 cords of wood a year. He was ordained in July 1817, and the ordaining council this time was, by vote, to be "entertained on contract by some proper person." Judging from the treasurer's accounts Mr. Gray must have been paid pretty largely by trade discounts. Deacon Larned called him "a learned and efficient pastor, and the ablest preacher, probably, ever settled over this people." *79 Deacon Larned, however, had not known him or his predecessors. But though a young man, the new minister was in feeble health and died Aug, 20, 1821, only thirty-six years old. The now almost illegible epitaph testifies to the esteem in which he was held : Sacred to the Memory of Rev. Cyrus W. Gray Pastor of the 1. Church in Stafford.

•78 C. C. Painter, Centennial Historical Address delivered in the Old Church, July 9, 1876; Tolland County Press, July 20, 1876 •79 John A. Larned in Tolland County Press, May 22, 1873 page fifty-eight THE FIRST CHURCH OF

Possessing a mind strong clear and well ...... ed ...... his heart refined ( ?) by grace: In his decisions prompt In his friends lips sincere In giving his sentiments undisguised In his piety fervent and stedfast In his preaching able and impressive In his trials patient In his ministry laborious; He was called from his youthfull family and affectionate flock and earthly labors, to his final rest Aug. 20, 1821 in his 37 year "The memory of the just is blessed." *80 The church generously paid his salary until the following April to his widow, while neighboring ministers donated their services in supplying the vacant pulpit. The quaint funeral customs of the time are indicated by two payments in the Society's ledger "for 2 quarters Lamb for Rev. Mr. Gray's funeral" and a payment "to M and B Grant, it being chiefly for Spirits and Flour and Sugar found [=provided] at Revjd Mr Grays funeral per order of Socie­ ty Committee." In 1821, or just before, the meeting-house could boast for the first time of a stove. Until then services had been held here as elsewhere in an absolutely unwarmed building, and Stafford was only fifty years behind the first church in America *81 to make such an innovation. Another innovation came in 1822 when they offered their new minister a vacation in terms that imply that such had not been their custom. "Voted that if Mr Smith should accept of the call of this Society to Settle over them in the Gospel 1\Iinis­ try, that this Society is willing he should be absent (should he wish it) two or three Sabbaths annually, without making any deduction in Salary." *82 This Mr. Smith was Harvey (or Hervey) A. Smith, also a graduate of Williams. He accepted and was installed in October, 1822. There were between 70 and 80 members at this time. *83 Mr. Smith's stay was brief for those days-only eight

*80 New Staff. St. Cemetery •81 See Dexter quoted by Byington, "The Puritan, etc." p. 146 *82 Society Rec. II 44 *83 Woodward, p. 18 STAFFORD, CONNECTICUT pa.ge fifty-nine years. Painter, on the basis of oral tradition, intimates that his difficulty lay in his handling of his personal funds. At any rate it proved difficult to raise his salary: in 1825 he was asked to accept a cut in salary on account of sinking prices, and in 1829 the So­ ciety had to "hire" money to pay his salary. It is not surprizing that in 1830 the Society "concurred with the Church in granting Mr. Smith's request for a council to dismiss him." He was re­ leased by council April 17, 1830. The Society was now $500 in debt.

For fifteen months there was no settled minister. Nearly half that time (23 Sundays) Mr. Backus, of Somers, supplied. *83a Others were a Rev. Mr. Plympton ( a Methodist minister, after whose name some disapproving Congregationalist placed two bold exclamation n'larks )-perhaps he is identical with the Parley Plymp­ ton who was hired to teach a singing-school in the church in 1836.), Mr. Francis (3 Sundays), Mr. Calhoun ( one Sunday), Mr. Robin­ son (two Sundays), Rev. Mr. Edson (14 Sundays). The last named, Ambrose Edson, was asked to be minister pro tempore for one year, but evidently declined. Whereupon the church called a most eccentric man, Moses B. Church, from Longmeadow, Mass., to be its pastor 1831-7. It may be that he had a premonition of the future when he insisted that the contractual provision for notice of termination of relations be changed from six months to three. Per­ haps he already knew reasons why he might some day have to leave the parish on short notice. His successor in office (Woodward) described him as follows:

"He possessed a strong mind and considerable sermonizing talent so far as stating and defending what he considered to be truth was concerned. But he was constitutionally eccentric, hence it was conceded to him, as his prerogative, to say and do things, that, in other men, would have been irregular, and very soon [would

*83a There is a curious and laconic note in the Congregational Archives at Hartford to the effect that the Directors of the Home Missionary Society of Connecticut appropriated in 1830 "to Stafford Spa .... $100." Evidently a missionary was hired for some months to preach at the Springs House. We must assume that the results were not encouraging, for no further appropriation for Stafford Springs was made until 1850, the year in which the Stafford Springs Congregational Church was or­ ganized. This note, for which I am indebted to Dr. Sherrod Soule, establishes 1830 as the date of the earliest r-ecorded Congregational ser­ vices in Stafford Springs. page sixty THE FIRST CHURCH OF

have] subjected their religious integrity to suspicion. It was for this reason that he retained the confidence of most of his people for a time, after he became contaminated with German neology and rank infidelity. He at length avowed himself an enemy of the sacred ministry and the Bible, and did what he could, in the space of a {ew months openly to disseminate his unhallowed principles." These remarks are tantalizing in their generality. And the Society's records are just as laconic. Under date Feb. 3, 1837, they read: "Council agreed upon to dismiss Mr. Church at his request." A note follows: " ( N. B. The Council dismissed Mr. Church and de­ posed him from the ministry for unsoundness in the faith.)" As to his eccentricity, an oral tradition in the Larned family tells of his tobacco-chewing in the pulpit. His contamination by "German neology" whets the curiosity of the present writer, himself a grateful graduate of a German university. Possibly Church knew of the rebelliously humanistic theology of Feuerbach, but probably the reference is to the historical method instituted by Her­ der and the new "higher criticism" of Eichhorn, but it is sur­ prizing to find any German influence in a Connecticut country town of that period. The only fuller account of Church's dismissal that I have found is in the records of the West Stafford Church, dated Feb. 23, 1~38: "Mr. Church on denying the inspiration of the Holy Scripture-the divinity of Christ and the Holy Spirit and the future existence of the Soul, etc., was deposed from the Gospel Ministry." Mr. Church died in 1871 or 2 in an insane asylum in Iowa *84; Deacon Lamed said his friends thought he was insane before he left Stafford. In these decades we still find uncertainty of terminology for the Congregational Church. There is a deed on record *85 dated Nov. 19, 1829, to a pew "in the Presbyterian Meeting House in the first Congregational Society in Stafford". (That pew sold for $12; another the same year brought $35-it must have been one of the back pews!) Even in its own records *86 Jan 1, 1839 the church curiously calls itself the "first Calvinistic and Evangelical Church in Stafford Connecticut." That seems aimed at someone, but at whom? the un-calvinistic Mr. Church? or the un-"evangelical"

*84 Arohives, Congregational House, Hartford *85 Society Records II 164 *86 Society Records III 10 STAFFORD, CONNECTICUT page sixty-one

Universalists? It may be only the urge for precise definition on the part of the young Presbyterian who was then acting as stated supply. The 1830's saw four new meeting-houses built in Stafford. The building of the Baptist Church in 1833 has already been noted. The same year the little Methodist Church on West Main Street was built; in 1874 it was moved to Mashapaug in Union and used again as a Methodist church for about forty years. The Second Congre­ gational Church (West Stafford) dedicated a new meeting-house on the Hill Dec. 19, 1839, the same one that was moved in 1854 down into the valley, where it now stands a landmark on the junc­ tion of two highways, and, since its recent renovation, the most attractive chur$ building, both inside and out, in Stafford. In the same decade the First Society built its third meeting-house on Staf­ ford Street, the last to stand in that venerable settlement. On Jan. 11, 1836, the Society unanimously voted to build a new meeting­ house. But they doubted the legality of tearing down the old one to rebuild on the same spot, inasmuch as some of the "dissenters," ±ormer Congregationalists, still owned as private property some of the pews in it. That meant that a new site had to be chosen. Un­ fortunately they could not agree, some wanting to build at the north end of the Street, others at the south. Two rival subscription-papers were circulated, and within that year ( 1836) $1050 was subscribed for the north location and $1700 for the south. The deadlock lasted for two years, until the Society accepted the offer of Widow Fanny Grant to give the Society sufficient land for the church in her mow­ ing-lot on the Street "4{) or 50 rods S. of the old meeting house." There it was built, the only Stafford Street meeting-house that was not in the common. It faced the common on the west side a few rods south of John Larned's driveway. "As to the stile and manner of the work the plan and arrange­ ment of the House and the Finish of the same, it shall be similar to the House lately *87 built in Gilead, some little variation from that may be made if the building committee think best." *88 This last Stafford Street meeting-house was 38' x SO' and had a pillared portico 6' deep. "The cost of the meeting house and ves-

*87 in 1838; it still stands. *88 Society Records III 9 page si.-.:ty-two THE FIRST CHTJRCH OF try was about $4500; and about $300 was expended in the erection of sheds." *89 From a subscription-paper in the possession of Mrs. John M. Larned there appear to have been eight of these horse­ ~heds, one of which was moved back and now serves as one of the out-buildings on the Larned place. They evidently were held as private property by members, inasmuch as the inventory of Miner Grant's estate lists one of them as his property. This building was dedicated Jan. 29, 184-0, and at the same time George H. Woodward was installed as pastor. The crowd that attended was so great that the meeting-house could not hold them all. The installation sermon was preached by the worthy Dr. Bennet Tyler, the first president of the infant Theological Insti­ tute of Connecticut, then three years old and located at East Wind­ sor Hill, now called The Hartford Theological Seminary and located at Hartford. Mr. Woodward had been stated supply since No­ vember, 1837. At least part of this time he had been a student at the Theological Institute. He was a Presbyterian-a real one!­ ordained by the New Brunswick Presbytery, Trenton, N. J., Oct. 4, 1837. He had studied at Dartmouth and Princeton 1831-33, taught school at Shrewsbury, N. J., 1833-36 and graduated at East Windsor 1837. Under his leadership the church thrived. A revi­ val took place in 184-2 that brought in forty new members; in 184-3 there were 140 members-probably the high-point of membership in that church's history. The "old" meeting-house (the second Congregational one) stood until 184-3. The last service held in it was a funeral for John M. Grant, Sept. 12, 184-3. At that time the bell in the new meeting-house had just been hung and was first tolled for this last service in the old one. Before the end of that year the old meeting­ house was criminally burned by parties who were never apprehended.

*89 Woodward, p. 21 STAFFORD, CONNECTICUT page sixty-three

CHAPTER VIII

The Mills Bring Secession

If the good fathers on Stafford Street could only have read the signs of the times and adapted themselves to them, the First Church of Stafford need not have died. But because of their con­ servatism that church was already doomed in the 1840s-the bright­ est-seeming period it ever had. Stafford was changing. In 1843 (or 184-1?) Jasper Hyde and Olney B. Goff organized the Granite Mill Co. in w~t was then the "Pool District," now the Borough of Stafford Springs. According to Woodward himself this mill was "built with the avowed purpose of promoting infidelity, so far as a mill could do it-in which no ·whig or Presbyterian should ever be employed." That sounds bad, but from our distant perspective probably means only this: Jasper Hyde, the leading spirit of one of the dissenting groups, resolved to hire none of his arch-enemies, the Congregationalists-and in politics he was equally partisan: Congregationalists were probably as staunchly Whig then as they are Republican now. The mill failed in a year or two and was bought by men "of very different views." *90 Whatever the purpose of the Granite Mill's founders may have been, it was the beginning of the industrial development that soon made Stafford Springs the population center of the town. The survey of the rail­ road was made in 184-8, and it was built soon afterward. *90a These two factors, together with the industrial boom at Stafford­ ville, meant an inevitable shift of population away from Stafford Street. Wisdom should have decreed that the church should follow. The first agitation for a church in "the Springs" is found in a letter of Dec. 31, 184-9, signed by G. M. Ives and Edwin H. Little, both members of the First Church, to the pastor requesting him to call a church meeting to authorize them to procure preaching at the

*90 They were Deac. A. W. Porter of Monson, and Geo. M. I ves, the two chief financial supporters of the new Springs Congregational Church. *90a The deeds of the New London, Willimantic and Palmer Railroad Co. to its right-of-way are recorded in the Stafford Land Records for 1849 and 1850; this road passed into the hands of the Central Vermont R. R. in 1892. page six/y-fvur THE FIRST CHURCH OF

Springs and to allow any who desire to attend there. They state that there were then 600 people living within half or three-quarters of a mile of each other and declare "that the time has arrived for something to be done to build up Zion here." At successive ad­ _i ourned meetings a motion to grant the request was deferred­ finally deferred indefinitely. Mr. Woodward resigned in protest March 30th saying,

"I am convinced that the contemplated division of this congre­ gation, which is already very small, contrary to the wishes of a very large majority will so much contract my usefulness, that duty requires me to seek release from my present connection with it." Meanwhile the Society met on Feb. 5th "to see if it is not for the interest of the Society to remove their place of worship to the Springs." George M. I ves made a motion to remove, but the dis­ cussion was so heated that the question was not put. Instead they agreed to let the matter be decided by a council of five neighboring mm1sters. The council sat in Stafford on Feb. 16th. With greater diplomacy than wisdom the council decided that the church should not mo;e "at present;" that a Congregational church should be or­ ganized as speedily as possible in the Springs; that the First Church should "cordially consent" to release any members who might pre­ fer to join the new church. They wisely, but probably in vain, urged that neither party take undue means of making proselytes from the other. The church unanimously accepted the council's recommendations the following day. The pastor and one of the deacons-David B. Bacon-were among those who departed.

A council called for the purpose dismissed Mr. Woodward April 4, 1850. He declined to supply the Street pulpit even the following Sunday, April 7th. This was not, as it might seem, pure perversity on his part, but was due to the fact that he was on that day to begin his preaching in the Springs. According to the records of the Springs Church Mr. Woodward preached his last sermon at "the Street" March 31, 1850--it was Easter Day-from Genesis 32:10, where Jacob says,

"I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth, which thou hast showed unto thy servant; for with my staff I passed over this Jordan, and now I am become two bands." STAFFORD, CONNECTICUT po,ge sixty-five

On the following Sunday his first sermon at the Springs was from Exodus 33 :15, the prayer of Moses, "If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence." Most ministers of to-day would be somewhat more reluctant than Mr. Woodward to identify their personal fortunes with those of the patriarchs, but it must be admit­ ted he knew how to find an apt text. That first sermon in the Springs was preached in the little Methodist meeting-house, built in 1833, that then stood on West Main Street somewhere near the junction with Monson Road. The embryo church worshipped there two Sundays, then "in the School House"-probably the one­ room red schoolhouse that stood from before 1815 on the site of the present Slovak Lutheran Church and was used as a school until the two brick schoolhouses" were built in 1854--where they continued to meet until Nov. lOth, when they began to use the new Lecture Room in the white frame meeting-house that was then being built on the present site of the Congregational church of Stafford Springs.

The Stafford Springs Congregational Society had been organ­ ized March 12th, a month after the Council's decision and two weeks before Woodward's resignation. He had served the Springs group, not yet officially organized as a church, only six months when his health-and probably also prudence in view of the embar­ rassing proximity of his recent parish-led him to resign. He held a pastorate at Groton, Conn., 1851-56, and one at Toledo, Iowa 1856-67. He died at the latter place Nov. 19, 1877. The Church was formally constituted by council Dec. 10, 1850. By that time the Street Church had already lost forty-eight of its members to the Springs Church, and others followed in succeeding years. But the mother church still lived.

During the rest of 1850 the Street Church was served by sup­ plies; Benjamin Howe, Ira Case, and H. W. Gates are mentioned among them. In 1851 the Street Church called Rev. Allen Clark, also a graduate (184-9) of the Theological Institute, who had served one year as a home missionary at Dover, Illinois, but had returned to Connecticut because of ill health. One week after he was called, the Society once more called a meeting to consider moving the church-this time to Staffordville, the other growing village of the town, where there was then what now seems an incredible number page sixty-six THE FIRST CHURCH OF of small factories, mostly machcine shops and textile establishments. But the Society and the Church could not agree. The Society re­ fused to move to Staffordville, while the Church favored moving; the Society refused to call an advisory council, which the Church desired. But the Church did call a council convened on March 10, 1852, and accepted the council's very cautious findings that they should experiment for one year with meetings in both places. The Society stubbornly rejected the findings of the council. In this stalemate the Church called another council to advise the minister where to labor, whether on the Street or at Staffordvilie. The council decided for the latter and dissolved the pastoral relation of Allen Clark to the Street Church. So from April to October, 1852, Clark ministered to a little group, as yet unorganized, in Stafford­ ville, the second secession from the mother church in two years' time and the second loss of both her pastor and a deacon to such a seceding group. Sidney Smith was the deacon lost to Staffordville. Allen Oark died after six months in Staffordville. The Congre­ gational Church there was organized in 1853 with three males and twelve females; the meeting-house, which still stands, was dedicated in May, 1860. Still the mother church went gallantly and stubbornly on. Merrick Knight was stated supply in 1853-4 and Robert D. Gard­ ner in 1854-5 (Archives, Congregational House, Hartford). In ] 855 they called an aged man, Joseph Knight, from Peru, Mass., who had been pastor of the West Stafford Congregational Church {rom Nov. 1816-Dec. 1829, when, being a Mason, he had been forced out of office by the anti-masonic craze of that time. He served the Street Church until his sudden death in 1860. He was the last settled minister of the First Church of Stafford. STAFFORD, CONNECTICUT page sixty-seven-

CHAPTER IX

Retrospect

This history for the most part is a chronicle gleaned from very meager sources. Any chronicle is apt to seem a collection of dry bones without flesh and blood. There are many questions about the actual life of the church and the conduct of its services that can no longer be answered, but there are a few that can be partially an­ swered. The music of a service can be the most colorful thing about it. What was the music like on Stafford Street? We would like to know, to&, more about the provisions made for children by the church. And we cannot help wondering when women's auxil­ iary organizations began to have their present importance. I have noticed only one direct clue to the Church's music in the 1700's. That was an appointment among the Town officers at the annual Town meeting, December 1753:

"Voted that the Town Concur with the Church in Chusing Coresters ,namely Mr Caleb orcut and Mr Seth Johnson." There were doubless "choristers" throughout that century, though I have not found any other indication that the Town felt further obliged to confirm their appointment. The earliest mention of music in the Society Records is the record of appointment of four "choristers", Dec. 31, 1812. *91 They were Abishai Washburn, Samuel C. Lyon, Capt. Eleazar Washburn, and Amasa Fuller. The following year Fuller was re­ placed by Dr. Samuel Willard, the son of Dr. John, the deceased pastor. A year later we find Jan1es Ruby's name in place of Wil­ lard's. It is interesting that all these singers were men, and im­ portant men: Lyon was a deacon, Washburn a militia captain, and Willard a physician and the proprietor of the Springs House water­ ing-place, the institution that had by that time given Stafford Min-

*91 Society Records II 19, 21, 22, 26 page sixty-eight THE FIRST CHURCH OF

era! Springs national fame. *92 The willingness of leading men in Stafford to serve the Lord with song has certainly undergone a change since then ! No hint of the nature of music in this church during the early 18th century has survived, but we may assume that they sang by rote, not by note, their repertory not going beyond the half -dozen tunes which were the only ones used by the New England churches in the early 1700's: the tunes named Oxford, York, Litchfield, Windsor, St. David's, and Martyrs. They can be found in most tune-books of 1800-1825. Four of them are still included in "The Scottish Psalter, 1929." The words were exclusively from the Psalms, and the singing was unaccompanied by any instrument­ this last in accordance with the literalistic Puritan interpretation of Amos 5 :23, "Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs, for I will not hear the melody of thy viols." As for the latter part of the 18th century, certain books in the Inventory of the Estate of John Willard hint that the music of the church had intelligent direction in the person of the minister him­ self. Willard owned two of the best English Psalm-tune books­ Playford's and Tans'ur's. (Psalm-books in the 18th century very rarely included any music.) The American tune-books of the time display a prodigious musical illiteracy, in contrast to which the English editions of Playford and Tans'ur seem from a different musical world. If Willard actually got them used, the singing on Stafford Street was rare indeed. He also possessed New England Psalm Book Revised, "The Bay Psalm Book," probably one of the iater editions which included melodies, but no harmony. \Vithout music he had the following: Watts' Psalms and Hymns, and Hart­ ford Hymns, two copies, one of them new. These contained hymns in our present sense, no longer just metrical versions qf the Psalms. The two copies of Hartford Hymns suggest that the

*92 The original register of that interesting House is in the possession of Dr. G. P. Bard, of Stafford Springs; it records cure-guests from as far away as Louisiana and the Carolinas, among them high government and military officials and diplomats from foreign countries. Mrs. Charles B. Pinney has a volume of the London Magazine (bearing the signature of John Willard on the title page) from a rental library maintainerl in the Springs House for the amusement of the guests. The rules of the library appear on a card pasted inside the front cover. The amount of rental was based upon the size of the book! STAFFORD, CONNECTICUT page sixty-nine

church was using it before Willard's death, and thus had ceased to sing Psalms exclusively. Sometime before 1813 the First Church had ceased to be an "anti-catgut church," and had admitted "the Lord's fiddle", for in that year they paid 47 cents to have the bass viol repaired. In 1837 the Society helped pay (the player probably paid the rest) for a "double Bass viol," but in 1850 the choir (this is the first indication that there was a "choir") was empowered to dispose of the large bass viol belonging to the Society and procure a smaller one. *93 The only other instrument mentioned is a "Seraphine" *94 pur­ chased in 1848 for $125 and sold in 1849 to E. W. Daniels for $100. This was an ancestor of the parlor harmonium of our grandmothers. "But the sera~hine was harsh and raspy in tone, and never found favor with sensitive musicians." *95 It is a credit to the musi­ cianship of Stafford Street that they so soon disposed of it and went back to the bass viol. As to singing, a Mr. Wells was paid "for attending to the singing at the installation" of Mr. Gray in 1817. A singing school conducted by one, Pond, was held in 1824. The Society paid $3.50 "to Mr. Crandall the Singing Master" in 1831, and in 1836 it was voted "that it is expedient to do something to revive the singing"; a committee was appointed to raise money and "hire Mr. Parley Plympton to teach the same." A Mr. Rand (Rend in MS) was paid for singing in 1840. The following year the Society ac­ tually spent $120 "on singing"-how is not revealed. The only mention of hymnals is the purchase, in 1849, of half a dozen Vil­ lage Hymn Books for the Conference House. That was a very popular Hartford publication by Asahel Nettleton; it went through many editions in the first half of the 19th century. The little book, 2W' x 5", included no tunes. I have care­ fully examined a copy of Village Hymns that belonged to Cyril

*93 It happens that Mrs. Frank L. Anderson has in the old Grant House on Stafford Street two old bass viols, a large and a small one-perhaps these very instruments. Clark Grant played the clarinet in the Street Church, Deacon Lyon the bass viol. *94 Society Records III 25 *95 Grove's Diet. of Music, 1935, IV 718; there is a seraphine in the N. Y. Metropolitan Museum, which is pictured in Grove's Diet., I 614. In general appearance it could be taken for a spinet. page seve1~ty THE FIRST CHURCH OF

Johnson, Sr. (born about 1790). It is dated 1824, apparently the first editions. Since Cyril Johnson, Sr. lived in the West Parish, this copy was probably used in the Second Congregational Church, on West Stafford Hill. At the beginning of each hymn text a choice of two or three standard hymn tunes is suggested. While many of the texts are still very familiar, only a few of the tunes are used today. St. Ann, still deservedly loved by every congregation, is recommended 20 times, Old 100 9 times, Truro 13 times. Sil­ ver Street and Hanover are each mentioned a few times. Luther's Hymn, still occasionally heard, was popular: 16 times. But the favorites of the editor are unknown today: Portugal, 35 times,­ not Portuguese Hymn ( Adeste Fideles), but a rather florid, yet singable tune; Bath, a dignified chorale tune, 30 times; and Col­ chester, 27 times, another good tune which the churches would do well to revive. Of the few tunes that had been in use in the early 18th century, Martyrs, York, and Windsor were evidently still in full favor. Probably 18th century singers would have felt more at home with the hymns of 1850 on Stafford Street than 20th cen­ tury singers. We barely learn that a "Sabbath School" existed from one mention in the treasurer's accounts for 1830. I do not know how long before that time it had been founded, but the pastor of the Willington Congregational Church in his centennial address *96 asserted that the Willington Sabbath School, founded in June of 1815, was the first in Tolland County. If that is true, the Stafford Sabbath School was probably founded during the pastorate of Mr. Gray, 1817-21. (The Sabbath School at Union was established in 1823-History of Union, p. 75.) After 1840 it certainly met in the "conference house" built as the gift of Miner Grant about three rods south of the last meeting-house. *97 The only records of this Sabbath School seem to be three little class attendance rec­ ords in the possession of Mrs. Frank L. Anderson. One, dated 1858, contains these names: J. A. Larned (doubt­ less the teacher), E. T. Converse, Austin Alden, Oren Knight, A. B. Rouse, Robert Blodget, Sidney Smith, E. Bugbee,-Bugbee, and H . Bugbee (last two probably identical). Another, undated: Mrs. Harriet Adams, Patrick Guiney, Edward Wright, Austin Al­ den, Andrew Alden, Wm. Reed, Charles Reed, Francis Fisk(e), Burt Smith, Wm. R. Foster, and Lucian Case. Another, undated: Mrs. Eliza Ledoyt, Amelia E. Winter, Lucy Bottum, Hannah

*96 T olland County Press, Aug. 3, 1876 *97 LR XXI 314 STAFFORD, CONNECTICUT page seventy-one

Larned, E. Reed, Emogene Smith, Lucille Foster, Jane P. Balch, Eliza Ellis, A. Reed, Lillia H. Foster, Violaty ( ?) Balck, Ellen M. Carter, Hatty ( ?) Thatcher. In the last records of the Society mention is ·made of a church library. Judging from a few specimens that remain in the hands of Mrs. John M. Larned, they were mostly children's books, but a copy of Whitefield's Sermons, Boston 1820, at Mrs. Anderson's is no child's book. It has the following library plate pasted inside the front cover:

No.---- Stafford First Society Social Library Books 'to be returned on the first Monday of January, April, July, and October, at 2 o'clock P. M. on each day. A fine if not returned in season--- also, for all damages Stafford, Con. 18 Of the successive women's organizations little more can be learned than their mere names entered on the Receipts side of the Ecclesiastical Society's ledger. The earliest one mentioned, 1817, called itself "The Female Cent Society." It contributed $30 to the Society that year, called in the ledger "1st year", It existed under this name for at least ten years. In 1834 acknowledgment is made of "Braid contributed by the Ladies toward Salary, sold for $46.15," and the following year "Cash, Braid, and Hats on the Ladies' subscription" yielded $36.39. These items confirm the local tradition that a century ago straw-hat making was a considerable home industry here, both for profit and for charity, as in this case. The annual value of home-made braid in the Town of Stafford for 1818 was estimated by the Gazetteer of Conn. and R. I. at from $8000 to $10,000. Shortly after this period the women's organ­ ization was called, as many another one could truthfully be called to-day, "The Ladies' Working Society." Finally, in 1845, they appear simply as "The Ladies' Sewing Society." Under all of these guises they were doubtless an important part of the church's "page seventy-tWo THE FIRST CHURCH OF life, but if they ever left any records of their own, they have long since disappeared. In 1827 and 1828, at least, there existed a "Male Association." The only clue to its existence is two reports of its executive com­ mittee for those years signed: Billings Grant, and now in the pos­ session of Mrs. Frank L. Anderson. Judging from their contents the "Male Association" was a men's missionary organization, but what it did, or how long it lived we have no way of knowing, except that once, about 1850, it is mentioned as the Gentlemen's Benevolent Association. Under the stress of extreme emergency the church swallowed its anti-Baptist pride of fifty years before and for at least seven weeks in 1861 heard from their pulpit a Baptist clergyman, the Rev. Mr. Batchelder, who was twice pastor of the Stafford Hollow Baptist Church, 1854-9 and 1866-99. This was in the interim be­ tween his two pastorates. Others who supplied that year were a Rev. E. Griggs, a Mr. Curtis, and Elbridge W. Merritt, then still a student. The latter became stated supply 1862-5, and the late John Merritt Larned, the last person to be baptized in that church, was named for him. Mr. Merritt was later a missionary of the American Missionary Association to the negroes at Charleston and Beaufort, S. C. John R. Freeman supplied 1866-7. Charles Hyde, who had been pastor at Staffordville 1855-6, half of 1868-9, the other half Rev. A. Southworth (or Alden Southurst, as the name also occurs) . Joint pastors of the Street Church and Staffordville were: David B. Hubbard, 1871-4; L. F. Rand, 1874-5; and W. P. Clancy, 1875 to April, 1877. During these six years services seem to have been held on alternate Sundays in the two churches. The last known service in the Street Church was on Easter Day, April 1, 1877. Before that year was over Deacon and Mrs. John A. Larned united wi th the Springs Church, whose records n

*98 James McLaughlin, editorially 111 Tolland County Press, May 22, 1873 STAFFORD, CONNECTICUT page se:venty-three

The sad end had come. There remained only the church prop­ erties and the Ecclesiastical Society, which could not dissolve until the properties had been disposed of. This process dragged on for fifteen years. The Society, consisting of a handful of men, faith­ fully held its annual meetings through 1889; there is no record of a meeting in 1890 or 91. In June of 1876 a committee had been chosen to confer with pew owners to see whether any objected to selling the meeting-house. Some evidently did, because no action was taken. July 9th, 1876, the Sunday following the centennial anniversary of Independence Day, Rev. C. C. Painter *98a de~ livered in the Stafford Street Meeting-house the masterful centen­ nial sermon which has often been quoted above. It was printed in full in the Tolland County Press of July 20, and 27, 1876. That same month the church bell was sold for $140, "purchaser to come and take it in the belfry." It was bought by the Willington Con­ gregational Scx;jety and taken away Sept. 14, 1876; it was hung in the little white church on Willington Hill, now the Town Hall of Willington, where it still hangs. After the famous Stafford Flood of 1877 had swept away the original Stafford Springs meeting-house the First Society gave the Springs Society the stone steps and the under-pinning of the old Street meeting-house. They were used to make the projecting string-course (also called water-course) in the present stone edifice at the level of the main floor. They are easily distinguishable there to-day, a melancholy symbol of the too tardy recognition of the Stafford Springs Church's continuity with the First Church. In 1882 thirteen shares of bank stock owned by the Society were transferred to the American Home Missionary Society (7 shares from bequest of Miner Grant) and the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions ( 6 shares from bequest of Eleanor Grant), as stipulated in the conditional bequest of the don­ ors. The Society held a public auction on April 29, 1882, to sell the meeting-h,ouse. "The old Stafford Street church brought $71 at Saturday's auction and report says that its material will go towards enlarging the village of Thompsonville." *99

*98a Pastor, Stafford Springs Congregational Church, 1874-79 *99 Tolland County Press, May 4, 1882 page sev;mty-fO'Ur THE FIRST CHURCH OF

It was decided to pay back the permanent fund to the donors or their heirs. With great labor this was finally accomplished in 1884. The library mentioned above was dispersed. The pulpit Bibles became the property of the Larned family. The older one is at the Hartford Historical Society, the other in regular use on the pulpit of the Springs Church, to which it was recently given by Mrs. Larned. It was voted to give the communion service to some needy church, but I can find no record that this was ever done. The meeting-house lot was "sold" to John A. Larned for $1. The last act of the Society was to transfer its remaining funds to the Staffordville Church, Aug. 8, 1892. "It was voted that considering the depleted condition of the Society, all the funds now on hand after deducting all expenses be given to the Staffordville Congregational Society of Stafford as a permanent fund, the principal to be placed at interest in such man­ ner as said Society may direct and the interest to be annually applied for the support of the preaching of the gospel in said Society." The day that vote was taken the Society transferred $1105.36-­ and expired. Thus ended the First Ecclesiastical Society of Staf­ ford in the 170th year since the founding of the Church.

In spite of all their imprudent obstinacy we cannot but respect the loyalty of these people to the founders of the Town and the Church in refusing to forsake the location they had chosen in the wilderness to become Stafford, Connecticut.

The Mother Church is dead and yet she lives in her children :

Second Congregational Church of Stafford, 1764

Stafford Springs Congregational Church, 1850

Staffordville Congregational Church, 1853 (now federated with the Staffordville Methodist Church.)

Though these three are the only children who can officially acknowledge her motherhood, yet other churches of the Town are only slightly less her children. Through having nurtured most of their earliest members she is directly or indirectly the mother, in a certain sense, of the local Baptist, Universalist, Methodist and STAFFORD, CONNECTICUT page swmty-five

Episcopal churches. To them all she gave of her strength. Per­ haps it is fitting, after all, that her individual life ceased when their one-time unity in her had ceased to be. Accidents of history caused most of the divisions ; it is not impossible that such accidents will yet bring most of the parts together. Then the denominational name will be utterly unimportant, as it was in the beginning. Until then we can all believe in the Christ Universal, in whose invisible unity we even now deny the finality of our visible disunity. page sevet~ty-six THE FIRST CHURCH OF

PASTORS

1. John Graham, M.A., M.A. Jan. 17, 1722/3-March 15, 1730/1 (-- Dickenson, April, 1731-3 or 4) 2. Seth Payne, June 6, 1734-July 27, 1740 3. Eli Colton, July 23, 1744-June 8, 1756; died in office 4. John Willard, M. A., D. D., Dec. 1756-Feb. 16, 1807; died in office (Calvin Ingals, 1813-15, serving both 1st and 2nd Churches) (Joel Mann, six months, 1815) (Stephen Crosby, Jr., 1816) 5. Cyrus W. Gray, July, 1817-Aug. 20, 1821; died in office 6. Harvey A. Smith, Oct., 1822-April 17, 1830 (Samuel Backus, half of 1830) 7. Moses B. Church, July 24, 1831-Feb., 1837; deposed for in­ fidelity. (Geo. H. Woodward, supply, Nov. 1837-Jan., 1840) 8. George H. Woodward, Jan. 29, 1840-March 31, 1850 9. Allen Clark, Feb., 1851-March 30, 1852 (Merrick Knight, 1853-4) (Robert D. Gardiner, 1854-5) 10. Joseph Knight, Jan., 1855-1860; died in office (Elbridge W. Merritt, 1861-5) (John R. Freeman, 1866-7) (Charles Hyde and Alden Southurst or Southworth, 1868-9) Serving Staffordville and supplying the Street Church at the same time: (David B. Hubbard, 1871-4) (L. F. Rand, 1874-5) (W. P. Clancy, 1875-April, 1877) Average pastorate : 11 years Longest pastorate : SO years Ordaitied in Stafford: Graham, Payne, Colton, Willard, Gray STAFFORD, CONNECTICUT page seventy-seven

FRAGMENTARY LIST OF CHURCH OFFICERS

Deacons Clerks Treaswrers (The following men (The pastor, when there (Under the Society sys­ bear the title "Deacon" was one, was normally tern the church treasur­ at the dates indicated. t·he clerk. Dr. John er was in charge of ben­ List is probably incom­ Willard kept the Church evolences only, though plete, and their terms of Vital Records 1757 to he was often the same office are unknown.) 1806. No further rec- person as the Society John Warner 1723-? ord until 1840.) Treasurer.) Josiah Standish 1723-? (--) Porter 1742 Samuel West 1749, 1759 Nathaniel Loomis 1756 Daniel Alden 1757, 1784 Seth Johnson 1766, 1790 -- Deane 1780 ... John Norris 1783 Jonathan Whitaker 1780, 1806 (Nehemiah Lyon, a dea­ con when admitted from 2nd 1Church, Woodstock in 1803) (Levi Lyon, a deacon when admitted from the Church in N. Wood­ stock, 1815) Silas Dean 1840 Alden Blodget 1840, 1844 Samuel Lyon 1840, 1844 G. H. Woodward, Miner Grant, from be­ Nelson Kingsbury, elec­ 1842, 1847, 1848 fore 1841 to his death, ted Jan. 5, 1844 (Miner Grant, 1845 May 3, 1850 (Daniel Smith, elected pro tern.) James Porter 1850-? Jan. 5, 1844, declined) Rev. James Porter ap­ David B. Bacon, pointed stated clerk, elected 1848 1850. (He had joined Sidney Smith, the chul'ch in 1849, a elected 1848 minister without a Albert Barrett, charge. He had mar­ elected 1851 ried Lucinda Grant, sis­ John A. Larned, ter of Miner.) elected 1858 Allen Clark, 1851-2 Theodore P. Winter, James Porter, 1852 elected 1858 J. Knight, 1855 page seventy-eight THE FIRST CHURCH OF

MEMBERS OF THE FIRST CHURCH

(from the earliest known list. 1840)

1840 Eleazer Washburn Alden Blodget,* Deacon Catharine Washburn T3 Sarah Blodget* Nancy Washburn Eunice Baker, T Martha Washburn, T3 May A. Blodget Achsah Washburn, T3 Patty Brooks, T Lucretia Washburn Martha Bradley* Ebenezer Whitney* Martha Bradley, Jr. Mrs. -- Whitney, T (Towne) T Alfred Wood Sally Colbura* Avery Davis Eunice Converse* Eliza Davis Julia Ann Converse, T4 Elijah Bugbee, T4 Martha Converse, T4 Caroline Hyde, T4 Silas Dean, Deacon* Julia Johnson, T Azubah Dean, T3 Joseph C. Dow* F May Foskit, T4 Julia Dow* F? Sally Ferry, T Cynthia Hyde Billings Grant, T Harriet Grant, T Eliza Grant, T Eliza Ives; T Fanny Grant* Abigail Ellis, T3 Miner Grant* Wid. Converse* Eleanor Grant* Nancy Brown, T Eleanor Green Abigail Guthrie* Polly Fuller, T Lydia Lyon, T Sally Hyde* Levina Orcott* Mary Howe* Wid. Webb* Mary Johnson, T Hannah Howe* Samuel Lyon, Deacon* Thomas Pinks, T Betsey Lyon* Mary Pinks, T Dorothy Needham* Nelson Kingsbury, T Mary Orcott* Nancy Kingsbury, T Minerva Orcott, T3 David B. Bacon, T3 James Ruby Harriet I. Bacon, T3 Mary Ruby Annette L. Woodward, Sarah Strong* T3 Matilda Crane, T Mary Foskit Lorenza (Loranca, a- Esther Ferry, T4 bove) Strong Wid. Bradley* Delight Strong, T Eunice Howe* Eunice Smith, T4 Emily D. Bugbee, T4 Mary (Mercy, above) Sarah Woodworth, T Threasher, T4 Willard Orcott STAFFORD, CONNECTICUT page sroenty-t~ine

Lovisa Orcott Albert Barrett, T4 Fanny Grant, Jr., T Wm. Smith, T3 Almira Converse, T Sidney Smith, T4 Almena Smith, T4 Admitted 1843 Hannah Hutchins, T Zina Winter Louisa Alden, T Mrs. -- Winter* Sarah Woodworth, T Theodore Winter* Hannah Plympton Emily Winter Elizabeth Childs Eliza Winter Charlotte Bradley* Lucy Buck Sarah Martin Harriet L. Smith T Esther Rockwell, T3 Martha Bradley, T Charlotte Gilmore, T Elizabeth Burbrige Susan Fairbank Caroline Walbridge Ruby Blanchard, T Elizabeth Walbridge Bezaleel Woodward* Daniel Smith, T3 Lydia Woodward* Elizabeth Corbin Martha Shaw John Gilmore Erastus Kingsbury, T Abigail Ellis, T3 Hannah Edson* Lucy Ann Grant, T4 Betsey Washburn, T Hannah G. Florence Betsey Corbin Philo D. Shaw E Irene Washburn, T3 Levi L. Shaw' Elizabeth Ives Nancy Ann Adams Haty Salisbury* Mary Hill (Mrs. Nancy Ives) Emoline Rockwell Eunice Child Admitted 1841 Martha Ellis, T3 Lucinda Harvey* Mary Standish, T Mary Sophia Shaw* Lyman W. Crane, T Admitted 1844 Sidney Work* ( No. of Ch. 134) Mrs.-- Work Chancy Smith, T3 Sarah Needham, T3 Martha Ann Washburn Nan<:y Grant T3 Enoch W. Daniels, T3 James Souls, T3 Emily Daniels, T3 Charlotte Souls, T3 George M. Ives, T3 Admitted 1842 James Flint, T Harriet Alden, T Mrs. -- Flint, T Calista Carpenter* Asa ·whitney, T Lyman W. Crane, T Julia Ann Dunham* George Lincoln, T Admitted 1845 Laura Lincoln, T Emery Parker, T Mary Davis Mrs. -- Parker, T page eighty THE FIRST CHURCH OF

Admitted 1846 Admitted 1854 Ezra Whitney* Henry William, T Lucy Whitney Abigail William, T Abigail Pease Bidwell* Admitted 1847 Mrs. Harriet S. Beebe Admitted 1855 Miss Harriet Howe, T Mrs. Hariette P. Mrs. Mary S. Ives, T3 Knight, T Abijah Ladd, M. D., T EEza Blodget, T Admitted 1857 James Hamilton, T John A. Larned, T3 Margaret Hamelton, T Mrs. Hannah Larned, (Mrs. John A.), T3 Admitted 1848 Mrs. Susan Smith, T3 Admitted 1858 John Winchester, T3 Mrs. Ann Maria Jones Mrs. -Winchester, T3 Gulielmus B. Millard* Harriet H. Winchester, Mrs. Eliza A. (Tilling- T3 hast) Millard, T Mary Ann Winchester, Robert Blodgit, 80 T years old Mrs. Submit Browning, Ezra Tupper Converse, T T3 Edwin H. Little, T3 Sarah Millard Ayers, T Mrs. Eliza H. Little, T3

Admitted 1849 Admitted 1860 Charles Holbrook, T Mrs. Nancy Brown Mrs. Fanny Holbrook, Isaac McNary T Mrs. Mary McNary Rev. James Porter (M1 s. Isaac) Mrs. L. Porter Admitted 1866 Admitted 1851 Mrs. Eliza Grant Mary Fosket, 2nd, T4 Miss Jane A. Larned Miss Pamelia S. Wal- bridge Allen Oark Mrs. -- Clark, T

KEY TO SYMBOLS *=died a member of this church T=transferred by letter to an out-of-town church T3=transferred to 3rd Chur·ch. (Stafford Springs Church.) T4=transferred to 4th Church, (Staffordville Church.) E=excommunicated June 1, 1848 F=excommunicated June IS, 1848 STAFFORD, CONNECTICUT page eighty-one

Resume at end of 1851 recapitulation: Total ...... 73 non-resident ...... 20

Resident members ...... 53 Resume after 1860 entries: April 1st, 1865 Nineteen church members-3 males, 16 females Jan. 1st, 1868 17 church members-! male, 16 female List of names at end of membership, without any heading: Mary Blodget Hannah Plympton Esther Rockwell Lucy Buck

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Adams, John, Pres. of the U. S., "Diary" in his published works Ballou, Hosea II, by Hosea Starr Ballou, 1896 Batchelder, Rev. F. L., pastor of Stafford Baptist Church, Historical Sermon, delivered 1859 - a photostatic copy (made in Dec., 1915?) of a typewritten copy, in the State Library, Hartford, Conn. Byington, Ezra Hoyt, The Puritan in England and New England, 1896 Colonial Records of .Connecticut Cothren, William, History of Ancient Woodbury Dexter, Franklin B., Yale Biographies Ecclesiastical Archives of Connecticut, Series I and II, MS, in State Library, Hartford Gazeteer of Connecticut and Rhode Island; see Pease, John C. Graham, John, his writings; see p. 22 within Hammond, Charles, principal of Monson Academy, Monson, Mass., His­ tory of Union, Conn., 1893, and various Articles in Tolland County Press (dates of publication given in notes) Hartford North Association Records, MS, at Congregational House, 37 Garden Street, Hartford tage eighty-two THE FIRST CHURCH OF

Historical Souvenir, Stafford Baptist Church, 1909. Copies at State Li­ brary, Hartford, Public Library, Springfield, and American Antiqua­ rian Society, Worcester History of Ancient Woodbury, William Cothren Land Records, Town of Stafford, MS, Town Clerk's Office, Stafford Springs Larned, Deacon John A., Article, "History of the First Congregational Church in Stafford," Tolland County Press, May 22, 1873 LR (Land Records of Stafford, above) Morrall, Mrs. William, wife of a rector of the Episcopal Church of Staf­ ford Springs, Article: "An Evening with the History of Stafford; the Churches," Tolland County Press, April 7 and 14, 1904 Moulton, Horace. The Young Pastor's Wife. Memoir of Elizabeth Ann Moulton. Boston 1845 Painter, Rev. C. C., pastor of the Stafford Springs Congregational Church, Centennial Address, "The Churches of Stafford," Tolland County Press, July 20 and 27, 1876

Pease, John C., and Niles, John M., Gazetteer of Connecticut and Rhode Island, Hartford 1819

Probate Records of Stafford, MS, at the Stafford Probate Court and in the State Library, Hartford, Probate Dept.

Soule, Sherrod - not a book, but much better: a living encyclopedia of Connecticut church history. Dr. Soule is the official Historian of the Connecticut Conference of Congregational Churches, 37 Garden Street, Hartford.

Sparks, Jared, Library of American Biography, 1834-38

Sprague, William B. Annals of the American Pulpit 1857-76

Springs House Register, MS, in the handwriting of Dr. Samuel Willard and his son Augustus, covering the years 1805-13. The MS is in the possession of G. P. Bard, M. D., Stafford Springs. Stafford First Church Records, Vols. I-IV, MS in State Library, Hart­ ford, photostat copy in Town Clerk's Office, Stafford Springs. (Vol. I is erroneously bound in: it is a pamphlet giving estate rateable for Town taxes in the year 1797.) Vols. II-III are First Society Rec­ ords, 1803-92, but a volume containing the records from about 1760- 1803 was lost long ago; Vol. IV is Church Records, begun, apparent­ ly, by Rev. George Woodward about 1840- it is the sole surviving original record book of the Church itself. STAFFORD, CONNECTICUT page eighty-three

Stafford Church Vital Records (made by Dr. John Willard), a hand­ written copy in the Connecticut Historical Society Library, Hart­ ford, made by L. Belle Gorton for the Conn. Society of Colonial Dames of America; two photostatic copies of the Gorton Copy in the State Library, Hartford; a typewritten copy of the same in the vault of the Stafford Savings Bank, Stafford Springs. Period cov­ ered: 1757-1816 Tolland County Press, weekly newspaper published at Stafford Springs, founded 1858, later called The Press, now called The Stafford Press; a not quite complete file may be consulted at the Stafford Press office, a more complete one, recently given by Mrs. Lewis McLaugh­ lin, in the State Library. Trumbull, Benjamin, A Complete History of Connecticut, 1818 Union, History of, by Charles Hammond, edited by Harvey M. Lawson Willard Genealogy, by Joseph Willard, 1858 and 1913; Sequel 1915 Willard, Sidney, Memories of Youth and Manhood, 1855. There is a copy in the .yvatkinson Library, Hartford, no. 35591. Willard, John, Sermon at the ordination of his son John as colleague pastor with John Hubbard at Meriden, June 21, 1786, published by Woodward and Green, Middletown. Also: Charge to the Candidate at the ordination of Wm. L. Strong, of Somers, April 3, 1805, ap­ pended to the published ordination sermon by Rev. Crosman. These two are the only known publications of John Willard. Willard, John, MS Correspondence, many letters to and from him, mem­ oranda, etc. in the possession of Mrs. H. B. Rathbone, New Rochelle, N. Y.; others in the possession of P erry T. Rathbone, St. Louis, Mo. Also correspondence between John Willard and the Presidents Wheelock of Dartmouth in the archives of Dartmouth College. Woodbury, History of Ancient, by William Cothren Woodward, Rev. George H., pastor of the Stafford Street Congregational Church, Historical Discourse, delivered Dec. 31, 1843, published 1846 by Elihu Geer, Hartford. A copy is in the State Historical Library, Hartford; another copy is owned by Mrs. Frank L. Anderson of Stafford Street. page eighty-four THE FIRST CHURCH OF

Index of Names

ADAMS, Mrs. Harriet 70, John 32, CALHOUN, (-) 59 43, 48, Nancy Ann 79 CARPENTER, Calista 79, Josiah ALDEN, Abishai 44, Andrew 70, 44 Austin 70, Daniel 77, Harriet 79, CARTER, Ellen M. 71 Louisa 79, Noah 33, Samuel 45, 53 CASE, Ira 65, Lucian 70 ALDRIDGE, Nathan 33 CHAMBERLAIN, Joseph 33 ALLYEN, Henry 26 CHAUNCEY, Abigail 15, Charles ANDERSON, Mrs. Frank L. 59-72 15, Isaac 15, Nathaniel 18 AYERS, Sarah Millard 80 CHILD, Eunice 79 BACKUS, Samuel 59, 76 CHILDS, Elizabeth 79 BACON, David B. 64, 77, 78 CHURCH, Moses B. 59, 60, 76 Harriet I. 78 CLANCY, W. P. 72, 76 BAKER, John 52, Eunice 78 (-) 28 CLAP, Thomas 23 BALCH, Jane P. 71 CLARK, Allen 65, 66, 76, 77, 80 BALCK, Violaty 71 (-) 80 BALLOU, Hosea I 52, Hosea II 53 COBB, Edward 33, (-) 28 BARD, G. P. 54, 68 COLBOURN, Daniel 5, 31, Ezekiel BARRETT, Albert 77, 79 44, Mary 5, Sally 78 BATCHELDER, F. L. 34, Sl-53, 72 COLLINS, Gov. (John) 56 BEEBE, Harriet S. 80 COLLWELL, (-) 28 BIDDLE, Abigail Pease 80, COL TON, Benj. 28, Eleazer 31, c. w. 54 Eli 27, 28, 31-33, 35, 41, 76, Elia­ BILLOWS, (-) 8 kim 31, Eunice (Higley) 31, Ith­ BLANCHARD, Ruby 79 amar 31, Lemuel 31, Samuel 31 BLODGET, BLOGGETT, BLOG- CONANT, Shubal 28 GIT, Benj. 16, Alden 77, 78, Dan­ CONVERSE, Almira 79, E. T. 70, iel 13, 30, Eliza 80, Joseph 44, 80, Eunice 78, Josiah 30, 41, Julia Josiah 14, 16, 30, Mary 25, 81, Ann 78, Martha 78, (-) 78 May A. 78, Robert 70, 80, Sam­ COOLEY, Mrs. Marguerite 54 uel 8, 10, Sarah 78 COOMES, Hepzibah 5, Richard 5 BLOSS, Samuel 52, Samuel Jr. 52 CORBIN, Betsey 79, Elizabeth 79 BOTTUM, Lucy 70 COTTON, (-) 32 BOYLSTON, Ward-Nicholas 17 CRANDALL, (-) 69 BRADLEY, Charlotte 79, John 53 CRANE, Matilda 78, Lyman W. 79 Josiah 33, Martha 78, 79, Martha CROSBY, Stephen 57, 76 Jr. 78 (-) 78 CROSS, Noah 33, Steven 14, 30 BRAINARD, Hezekiah 6 CURTIS, (-) 72 BROOKS, Patty 78 DANIELS, Emily 79, Enoch W. BROWN, Nancy 78, 80 69, 79 BROWNING, Mrs. Submit 80 DAVIS, Avery 78, Cornelius 14, 30, BUCiK, Lucy 79, 81 35. Eliza 78, Mary 79, Pardon 37 BUGBEE, BUGBY, E. 70. Elijah DEANE, Azubah 78, Seth 28, Silas 78, Emily D. 78, E. W. 37, H. 70 77, 78, (-) 77 BURBRIDGE, Elizabeth 79 DE WOLFE, (-) 56 BUTLER. John 33 DICKENSON, (-) 24, 76 CADY, Garner 37, Isaac F. 37 DOOLITTLE, Samuel 8 CALDWELL, John 21, 22 DRAKE, Josiah 33, Nathaniel 33 STAFFORD, CONNECTICUT page eighty-five

DUNHAM, Gershom 16, Julia Zachariah 44 Ann 79 GRIGGS, E . 72 DWIGHT, Hawley 44, Joseph 43, GUINEY, Patrick 70 Lydia 43, Mary (Pynchon) 43 GUTHRIE, Abigail 78 EATON, Samuel 33, Thomas 33 HALL, Elisha 11, 15, 16, John 6 EDSON, Ambrose 59, Calvin 53, HAMILTON, Capt. (-) 6, James Hannah 79 80, Margaret 80 EDWARDS, Jonathan 12, 45, Tim­ HAMMOND, Chas. 9, 13, 15, 18, othy 12, 25 31, 47 ELLIS, Abigail 78, 79, Eliza 71, HARVEY, Lucinda 79 Martha 79 HARWOOD, Orrin 37 ELY, (-) 47 HEATH, Isaac 33 FAIRBANK, Susan 79 HILL, Mary 79 FERRY, Sally 78, Esther 78 HOLBROOK, Charles 80, Fanny FEZINGTINE, (-) 28 80 FISK(E), Francis 70, Nathan SO HOLMES, Isaac 33 FITCH, Ebenezer 6, James 5, 6 HOOKER, (-) 6 FLINT, James 79, (-) 79 HOWE, Benj. 65, Eunice 78, Han­ FLORENCE, Hannah G. 79 nah 78, Harriet 80, Mary 78 FOSKIT, May 78, Mary 78, Mary HOWARD, Benj. 8, 20, John 6, 2nd 80 Sgt. (-) 8 FOSTER, Isaac 3~, 36, 39, 40, Lil­ HUBBARD, David B. 72, John 45 lia H. 71, Lucille 71, Theodore HUTCHINS, Hannah 79 44, Wm. R. 70, (-) 44 HYDE, Caroline 78, Charles 72, 76, FRANCIS, (-) 59 Jasper 52, 63, Sally 78 FREEMAN, John R. 72, 76 INGALS, Calvin 36, 39, 40, 51, 76 FRINK, Thomas 42 IVES, Eliza 78, Elizabeth 79, Geo. FULLER, Amasa 67, Daniel 26, M. 63, 64, 79, Mary S. 80, Mrs. Moses 14, 30, Polly 78, Samuel 44, Nancy 79 (-) 29 JOHNSON, Cyril Sr. 70, Mary 78, FULSOM, Israel 5, 8, Rachel 5 Seth 67, 77 GALE, Benj. 22 JONES, Ann Maria 80 GARDINER, Robert D. 66, 76 JONS, Isaac 28 GATES, H . W. 65 JOSHUA, Sachem 6 GIBBS, Josiah Willard 44 KENT, Josiah 30 GILMORE, Charlotte 79 KIMBERLEY, Thomas 6, 7 GOFF, Olney B. 63 KINGSBURY, Erastus 79, Nancy GOODELL, Martin 54 78, Nelson 77, 78 GRAHAM, Andrew 23, 24, Chaun- KNIGHT, Harriette P. 80, Joseph cey, 23, John 9-14, 18-20, 22-24, 66, 76, 77, Merrick 66, 76, Oren 70 32, 76, John Jr. 23, Love 14, 18, LADD, Abijah 80 21, Richard Crouch 23, Robert 23, LAIRD, Richard 30 Sylvester 23, 24 LARNED, Hannah 71, Mrs. Han­ GRANT, Billings 58, 72, 77, Clark nah 80, Jane A. 80, John A. 17, 69, Eleanor 73, 78, Eliza 78, Mrs. 41, 51 , 57, 60, 61, 70, 72, 77, 79, Eliza 80, Fanny 61, 78, Fanny Jr. John M. 17, 72, 74, Mrs. John M. 79, Harriet 78, John M. 62, Lucin­ 62, 71, 74 da 77, Lucy Ann 79, Miner 57, 58, LEDOYT, Eliza 70 62, 70, 73, 77, 78, Nancy 79. LEE, Elias 33 GRAY, Cyrus W. 57, 58, 69, 70, 76 LEONARD, Jacob 52 GREE N, Eleanor 78, Jacob 14, 30, LILLEY, Samuel 30, 31 page eighty-si:r THE FIRST CHURCH OF

LILLIEBRIDGE, David 34 POMEROY, Richard 5 LINCOLN, Geo. 79, Laura 79 PORTER, A. W. 63, James 77, 79, LINDSAY, John 27, 33 L. 79, (-) 79 LITTLE, Edwin H. 63, 80, Eliza RAND, L. F. 72, 76, (-) 69 H. 80 RATHBONE, Mrs. H. B. 44, Per- LOOMIS, Nathaniel 77 ry T. 44 LYON, Betsey 78, Levi 77, Lydia RAYNOR, (-) 39 78, Nehemiah 77, Samuel C. 67, READ, David 16 77, 78 REED, A. 71, Charles 70, E. 71, MAGGRIGORY, John 11 Joshua 16, Wm. 70 MANN, Joel 56, 76 RICE, Wm. 63 MARKUM, Daniel 33, Daniel Jr. 33 RICHARDSON, Gershom 33, John MARTIN, Sarah 79 16, Uriah 33 MASON, Capt. John 5 ROBINSON, Joseph 16, (-) 59 McKINSTER, Salmon 37 ROCKWELL, Ernaline 79, Esther McLAUGHLIN, James 71 79, 81 McNARY, Isaac 80, Mary 80 ROGERS, John 28 MEACHAM, (-) 12 ROOD, David 5, 8, Joanna 5 MERRICK, John 30 ROUSE, A. B. 70 MERRIT, Elbridge W. 72, 76 RUBY, James 67, 78, Mary 78 MILLARD, Gulielmus B. 80, Eliza SALISBURY, Haty 79 A. 80 SANBORN, Love 9 MONGER, Nathaniel 33 SAWYER, James 16 MORRALL, Mrs. Wm. 53 SAXTON, Garshen, see SEXTON MORRISON, (-) 28 SCRIPTURE, Chester 43 MOULTON, Horace 36 / SEXTON, Gershom 8 NEEDHAM, Dorothy 78, Sarah 79 SHAW, Levi L. 79, Martha 79, NETTLETON, Asahel 69 Mary Sophia 79, Philo P. 79 NEVERS, Elisha 16 SMITH, Almena 79, Burt 70, NORRIS, John 77 Cha(u)ncey 79, Daniel 77, 79, ORCUT~ ORCU~ ORCO~ c~ Emogene 71, Eunice 78, Harriet leb 67, David 31, Joseph 10, 16, L. 79, Harvey 58, 76, Mrs. Maude Levina 78, Lovisa 79, Mary 78, 43, Sidney 66, 70, 77, 79, Susan 80, Minerva 78, Willard 78, Wm. 20, William 79, (-) 37 30 SNOW, Josiah 16 PAINE, Thomas 49 SOULE,Sherrod 13, 59 PAINTER, C. C. 31, 57, 59, 73 SOULS, Charlotte 79, James 79 PALMER, Elliott 36, 37, Wait 33 SOUTHURST or SOUTH- PARKER, Emery 79, (-) 79 WORTH, Alden 72, 76 PARSONS, Zenas 44, (-) 44 STANDISH, Josiah 8, 9, 11, 13, 20, PASCO, James 16, John 30, Jona- 77, Mary 79 than 16, 34 STEARNS, Shubael 33 PAYNE, James 27, John 25, Rachel STEEL, (-) 29 27, Seth 24-27, 32, 76, Stephen 27 STRONG, Delight 78, Loranca or PEASE, Daniel 6 Lorenza 78, Nathan 23, Samuel PERKINS, Abigail 46 53, Sarah 78, Wm. L. 45, (-) 11 PIKE, Leonard 33 THATCHER, Hatty 71 PINKS, Mary 78, Thomas 78 THRE(A)SHER, Christopher 33, PINNEY, Mrs. Charles B. 68 Mary or Mercy 78 PLYMPTON, Parley 69, Hannah TOWNE, Martha (Bradley) 78 79, 81, (-) 59 TRUMBULL, Jonathan 27 STAFFORD, CONNECTICUT page eighty-seven

TYLER, Bennet 62, (-) 30 WILLARD, Abigail 46, Abijah 48, UNCAS, Sachem 6 Augustus 43, Hannah (Fiske) 50, VERNON, (-) 57 Dr. John 17, 32, 33, 37, 39, 41-50, WADSWORTH, James 6, (-) 29 67, 76, 77, John Jr. of Stafford WALBRIDGE, Ames 14, 30, Car- 44, 45, Pres. Joseph 43, 50, J os­ oline 79, Elizabeth 79, Pamelia S. eph of Staff. 44, 45, Josiah 45, 80 Lydia 45, Lydia 2nd 46, Pres. WALES, Elisha 53 Samuel 42, 45, Samuel of Cam­ WARD, Edmund 22, John 33 bridge 43, Samuel of Stafford 44, WARNER, Daniel 16, 21, John 8, 45, 46, 67, Sidney, 41, 43, 46 10, 13, 15, 20, 77, Samuel 16 WILLIAM, Abigail 80, Henry 80 WARREN, Joseph 48 WILLIAMS, Nathan 37, Stephen WASHBURN, Abishai 67, Achsah 13, Stephen Jr. 44 78, Betsey 79, Catharine 78, David WINCHESTER, Harriet H. 80, 33, Eleazer 67, 78, Irene 79, Lu­ John 80, Mary Ann 80, (-) 80 cretia 78, Martha 78, Martha Ann WINTER, Amelia E. 70, Eliza 79, 79, Nancy 78, Seth 33 Emily 79, Theodore P. 77, 79, WEBB, (-) 78 Zina 79, (-) 79 WEBSTER, Joseph 33 WOOD, Alfred 78 WEST(E), SamUel 77, Zebulon 30 WOODBRIDGE, Timothy 12 WESTON, Zachariah 44 WOODWARD, Annette L. 78, Be- WEYMAN, (-) 29 zaleel 79, George H. 13, 16, 31, 41, WHITAKER, Jonathan 47, 77 58, 59, 62-65, 76, 77, Lydia 79 WHITE, Robert 13, 30, (-) 29 WOODWORTH, Sarah 78, 79 WHITEFIELD, George 33, 71 WORK, Sidney 79, (-) 79 WHITMAN, (-) 29 \VRl GHT, Edward 70 WHITNEY, Asa 79, Ebenezer 78, Ezra 79, Lucy 80