Chapter X: Part II: The Bi-Centennial Exercises (4)

“No, be it said to the glorious memory of the Pilgrims of New Milford and Western New England, they did not follow in the wake of many of the larger institutions in the East, and cringe and whimper and grovel under the crack of the whip of the slave-holding aristocracy. Open and free and manly, they stood out for the defense of freedom, whether applied to the person of black man or white man. It was the highest type of educational training which any institution can furnish. It was not tamely to learn axioms or to demonstrate mathematical problems, but to know, to believe, to defend that which was best and truest. These worthy Pilgrims who went out in the early part of the nineteenth century into this western forest, stood for this with all the sturdy strength of these mighty trees that shadowed their homes. It is because they went, and others like them, that the Buckeye State has risen to and maintained her dominant influence in the nation’s life. It is due to these Pilgrims, more than to any other one force, that the whole Northwest was from the first saved the disgrace of slavery. Institutions of learning in which women as well as men had the right to the best education were planted. They maintained the school, the church, the home in every hamlet and city and village; and, to-day, this region they settled presents the finest, largest, and most comprehensive type of Christian civilization that the earth affords. All glory, then, to these Pilgrims from New Milford! They, like one of old, ‘went out not knowing whither they went.’ They dared and suffered and died, but always achieved. Well may this village, a beautiful gem set in the midst of these rolling hills, rejoice in its own noble development and progress and prosperity. Your life here is almost ideal. The conditions are as fine as the world affords. But, as you rejoice in this Bi-Centennial of your own founding, forget not, O brave and true men and women of this generation; forget not, O Christians of these churches; forget not, O patrons of this redeemed nation, that the Pilgrims that went out from your firesides and homes into the great West inaugurated the tremendous forces that have moved on in increasing power and breadth until the whole nation has been made the richer by their mighty power.”

Dr. Bennitt’s address at Saint John’s Church was as follows:

“...Religious matters, during our beginnings, did not run very smoothly. The desire for greater religious freedom caused a considerable falling away of sundry church members to Quakerism in 1731 and 1732. There were also families who had come into the town, and brought with them an affection for their old Church in England; and, as the English Church had been established in Stratford in 1707, and in Newtown in 1732, only fifteen miles away, the influence of this Church began to exert itself here. When the Rev. John Beach ... established the services of the Church of England in Newtown, the Churchmen of New Milford journeyed on Saturdays to Newtown, carrying their own provisions, and the Churchmen there gave them their lodgings. He baptized their children, and came here to officiate at a marriage in 1739. He began services here about 1742. He sent Mr. Barzilla Dean here as a lay reader, services being rendered in one of the houses of a Church family.

“It is stated that certain Churchmen in New Milford were fined for refusing to attend the meetings of the Established Church. These fines were, by recommendation of the Rev. Mr. Beach, paid, and copies of the proceedings taken to be forwarded to the King and Council. The fact becoming known, the authorities refunded the money, and granted permission to build a church which before had been refused.... In 1745-6 materials were gathered, and the English Church in New Milford erected.

“Let us glance for a few moments at the village street at this time. The early settlers had laid out their town plot, because of a beautiful spring of water, at the head of the street, nearly in front of Ingleside School, and about under the present sidewalk. The water from this spring meandered its way down through the village street, _bowing_ from the spring to the south end of the street, where it formed a small pond, which was called ‘The Goose Pond.’ This accounts for the east side of Main Street _bowing_, while the west side is straight, and the street opening out considerably wider at the south end, on account of ‘The Goose Pond.’ This spring was there in my boyhood days, although an open ditch had been constructed through the middle of ‘The Green,’ in which the stream flowed. Since the construction of the water works, however, and the laying of pipes through the street, both the spring and the stream have disappeared.

“The First Established Church stood near the head of Main Street, near the spring, and the land granted for the Church of England was in the street, east of Mr. Samuel Prindle’s house, near where the old pound used to stand, at the south end of Main Street, therefore, and in the middle of the street. Here they built the first Church of England in New Milford.... It was a frame building, forty feet by thirty. It had two rows of windows, one above the other, and presented the appearance of a two-story house, and the door was in the side. It was surmounted by a turret in the center of the building, and stood ends to the east and west. The door was on the south side, and within, on the north side, stood the pulpit. It was not until 1756 that the building was finished, when, upon the building of the second meeting-house, it was voted to give three-quarters of the body seats and two pews in the old meeting-house to the Church of England. Then, the church was furnished with the square box seats, and the pulpit stood aloft, beneath which was the reading desk for the prayers, and, beneath that, the pew for the clerk, to lead in the responses, and to tune the Psalms. A curtain across the corner, served as a robing-room for the vesting of the clergymen, and, around little tables which were placed in the middle of the square box seats, gathered the families of the Churchmen of that early time. And on account of the love and affection they bore to the Rev. John Beach, of Newtown, who first planted the church in their midst, they named it ‘Saint John’s Church’; and it has borne that name ever since.

“The Rev. Solomon Palmer, a Congregational minister of Cornwall, dissatisfied with his orders, conformed to the Church, and went to England for ordination. After that, he returned here, and became the first Church of England minister who resided here, from 1754 to 1760.... He was succeeded by the Rev. Thomas Davies in 1761. He was a missionary sent by the ‘Venerable Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts.’ ... a graduate of Yale College, a man who had become a minister of the church, from conviction, a gentleman and a scholar, a reader of the service, and preacher of the highest order.... Under this man of God the Church outgrew its small building, and entered upon the construction of a new, more commodious, and churchly edifice.

“I have a copy of the diary of the Rev. Thomas Davies, containing most of his ministerial acts, and some of these shed considerable light on the old times. He records, on November 15, 1764: ‘On St. Pumpion’s (Pumpkin’s) Day, I baptized at Ethel Stone’s, Martha, Ester and Edmond, children of Ethel Stone, Hannah of Gad Sperry, Joseph and Hulda of Samuel Peet, and David Smith of David Smith.’

“He alludes to St. Pumpion’s Day in other records, which leads us to suppose that this was a colloquial term in those days for designating the annual New England Thanksgiving, which was celebrated by an abundance of pumpkin pies.

“I have a manuscript sermon of the Rev. Thomas Davies, preached at New Milford, written in the finest hand, showing clearness of thought, a fine choice of language, and rising to eloquence, in pressing home to the hearts of his hearers the word of God.

“The Rev. Mr. Davies was succeeded by the Rev. Richard Clark from Milford, who remained here until 1787. He was here during the Revolution. The church begun by Mr. Davies was completed sufficiently to begin services therein, and the old church was sold to the town for a town house. This was removed to the head of Main Street and used for several years.

“The second Church of England, begun under Rev. Mr. Davies, had Partridge Thatcher for its architect, but was modeled after the church at Stratford, but somewhat plainer in its ornamentation.

“It stood, facing the road towards Butter Brook, a few rods north of the first church, had a steeple which projected out in front of the building, and long windows round at the top. Within, it had the high pulpit with circular stairs; its reading desk and clerk’s pew beneath, making what was called a three-decker. A communion table was in front of all, and the whole was surrounded by a communion rail. A gallery was across the south end; and a curtain across the corner, served again as a robing-room. The service of that day had its peculiar features. The clergyman was robed in a long surplice and black scarf. He wore a white wig, to give age and dignity to his ministrations. The surplice was exchanged for a black silk gown and bands before the sermon, the congregation all knelt for the prayers, and, in doing so, turned around and knelt to the seats. The clerk (or clark, as the people called him) doled out a line of the old Metrical Psalms, and the congregation sang it, and waited for another line. There was no fire in the church, and, in winter, the women carried their foot stoves to keep their feet warm.

“The Revolution, however, gave great discouragement to the Church of England people, for everything English was hated by the inhabitants, and the Rev. Mr. Clark, after ten years of struggle, gave up and fled to Nova Scotia in 1787, and the church was closed.

“The kind of Church people that were made in the Colonial days of the Church in Connecticut may be illustrated by the name of Samuel Peet, a devout Churchman from Stratford, who came to settle in the New Milford North Purchase, in the vicinity of Rock Cobble, west of Peet Hill. He selected a site for his future home near a great rock, which, by some convulsion of nature, had been rent asunder, leaving a portion like an altar between, with two natural steps to ascend it. Here, Samuel Peet, the Hermit, knelt day by day to worship his God, and the holes he chiseled out for his knees on the top of that altar are to be seen to this day. He erected his house just west of the altar, and here reared his family, desiring to be buried between the rocks, but, as it was found they came together just below the surface of the ground, he was buried on the east side of the altar rocks, in one of the most romantic burying-places of this town. Now, in 1789, when the Rev. Mr. Clark had fled to Nova Scotia, and the church in New Preston was boarded up to save its windows from being destroyed, Samuel Peet was on his death-bed, desiring to receive the Holy Communion. He sent a messenger away down to one of the churches nearer the Sound, for a priest. It was in March, and the roads were very heavy, and a prolonged time was required.

“Meanwhile, Samuel Peet was nearing his end. He asked that bread and wine be prepared and placed on a table beside his bed, that no time be lost when the priest of the Church arrived. Again and again, he sent out to see if the messenger and the priest might be seen coming in the distance; and, as the end grew nearer, and the priest had not arrived, Samuel Peet said, ‘Let us pray,’ and, when all had knelt around his bed, he prayed: ‘O Blessed Jesus, Our great High Priest, come down and consecrate this Bread and this Wine to be Thy Body and Blood.’ And, after silence had been kept for a space, he reached out his trembling hand and communicated himself, after which he soon fell asleep in Jesus. Who shall say that was not a valid consecration!

“The priest of the Church arrived that night, and remained to commit his body to the earth, looking for the general resurrection in the Last Day....

“It is a tradition that some of the rectors of the Church of England had a habit of talking to themselves, and, behind the curtain while they were robing, would often repeat over the notices to be given out, the most interesting being the publishing of the banns of matrimony, which was the custom in those days. On one occasion the banns were published between Orin Marsh and Maria Hill, who lived upon the plains. Now, there were in the Church, Orman Marsh of Boardman’s Bridge, and Maria Hill, of Aspetuck, whom the congregation thought were the parties published, greatly to their confusion. That day, the second-named began their acquaintance, suggested by the banns, and, in due time, their banns were likewise published.

“The Rev. Enoch Huntington, who entered upon the rectorship in 1827, began parish records, and, upon the first page, states that there was a congregation of about thirty. No Sunday school, and no music. Also the church was in need of repair, but he concluded not to spend much upon it, but later to build a new church, the third one of the society. The new rector soon gained the love and esteem of the people in general, and the attendance of young people became a prominent feature in his ministry. So devoted were his people, that they are spoken of, when the church roof was old and leaky, as sitting in their pews during a shower, with their umbrellas up, listening to the preaching of the word of God. A bell was placed in this old church steeple, the first one the church possessed. In 1837 a new church was erected on the east side of Main Street at the corner of what is now called Church Street. This church was a frame building, with long windows, square at the top. It had a square tower upon it, and, within, a gallery around three sides, a massive mahogany pulpit, reading desk below, and a small mahogany communion table in front, with two mahogany chairs on either side, a communion rail enclosing them. A vestry-room was built in the rear, and the rector entered the pulpit from stairs in the vestry-room, and appeared through a door cut in the wall behind the pulpit.

“The pulpit and reading desk were covered with cushions of black silk velvet, with heavy silk-corded fringe across the front, and large silk tassels suspended at the corners. There was a sofa seat behind the reading desk attached to the pulpit.

“The pews had doors with large black tin plates attached with numbers on. This church was considered very handsome in its furnishings, and was the pride of both rector and people. It was furnished with a new bell, and into this came the first organ owned by Saint John’s Church. Rev. Mr. Huntington resigned in 1848, and, after his decease several years later, was brought here and buried in the village cemetery, having this honorable record--of being the rector of Saint John’s Parish longer than any other clergyman from its beginning to the present day....

“During the incumbency of Rev. William H. Reese, I was baptized in that old church, out of the silver bowl placed on the communion table. When I was a little child, I well remember how Bishop Brownell catechised the children, standing about the chancel rail, but, perhaps, as I grew older, the most vivid impression made upon me was the preparation for, and attendance upon, the old-time Christmas Eve service. Evergreens were gathered upon the Plains, and the people assembled at Mr. George McMahon’s to tie them. They were gathered in Aspetuck, and the people assembled at Mr. Marshall Hill’s or Mr. Stephen Morehouse’s. They were gathered at the village, and the people assembled at the house of my father, Noble S. Bennitt, on Bennitt Street. The refreshments consisted of a pan of doughnuts, round and sugared. The cracking fire on the hearth consumed the broken branches, and the young people remained for a social time after their elders had departed. Such large ropes of evergreens were tied, and afterwards suspended from corner to corner of the church, and all around the walls, and in front of the gallery!

“White covers of bleached muslin covered the pulpit and reading desk, to which were attached fringes made of the needles of the pine, by Miss Bostwick, afterwards Mrs. Leroy Buck. Mottoes of evergreen on white cloth were put up on the walls, and candelabra, of five candles each, across the ends of the pulpit and desk cushions. Miss Cornelia Boardman brought a large fluid lamp with a glass globe and put it on the communion table. The people reserved their whitest and purest tallow to make dipped candles to hang up in tin back candlesticks under the gallery, while Edgar and Henry Wells made a great star of five points, covered it with evergreens, and suspended it from the ceiling in the middle of the church, containing as many candles as it was the year of the century. This was the only time in the year that the church was lighted up, and the people of the town turned out and filled the church and its galleries to overflowing. The good old Christmas Eve service of the old times, who that was then alive shall ever forget it!

“But the solemnity of the old-time Sunday comes up with all its hallowed associations. The Sunday church bells, with the orderly ringing and tolling of their first bells and last bells; with their solemn tolling for a death--nine for a man, seven for a woman, five for a boy, three for a girl!

“The sleigh bells, too, bass ones and tenor ones, jingling all the week in the winter time, but no sleigh bells on Sunday! I well remember when two young men, in their want of respect for the traditions of Sunday, drove through the village street with sleigh bells on their horse on the Lord’s Day, thereby shocking the sober-minded people of the churches and the town.

“The social gatherings of the people come back to one, as he recalls the old times, also. The annual donation parties given by the parishioners to their parsons, when, it used to be said, ‘The people would bring all kinds of good things to the parsonage, and then remain for a good social time, spread all the good things brought for a feast, and then largely consume them before they departed.’

“Other social gatherings had their attractions for the people, but I recall _one_ which was to occur, but never took place.

“It was on the coldest day of February, 1860, when, in large sleighs, a company of people set out for a dinner party to be given upon the Plains. As they passed down the Main Street, the bell of Saint John’s Church was tolling for a funeral about to be held within it. It was thereupon agreed to stop and attend the services, warm themselves by the fire, and then proceed on their journey.... The clergyman took for the text of his funeral sermon, which in those days was a very dignified discourse, ‘It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting: for this is the end of all men, and the living will lay it to heart.’ Consternation filled the hearts of all. The women and the children remained in the church by the fire, and the men went to the village cemetery to assist in the burial; after which all returned to their homes. The effect of the sermon had been marvelous, and the living had laid it to heart. The funeral was that of the widow of Dr. Amaziah Wright.

“Rev. Charles G. Acly, who became the rector in 1856, wrought a good work here, and, under him, the church was enlarged in the summer of 1860, by the nave being extended nearly twice its length. A recess chancel was added, and a stained-glass chancel window given, as a memorial of the Hon. Elijah and Mary Anna Boardman--the first stained-glass window in the town. The old mahogany pulpit was made into an altar. There was an altar cloth of red which served for the whole year, a beautiful reading desk and pulpit combined, which stood outside the chancel rail, and, in the center, before the altar, given by Mr. Solomon E. Bostwick, a pedestal with a marble bowl for a font....

“In this church I began my first work in the Church of God by blowing the first organ the church ever owned, and Miss Schroder, now Mrs. George W. Wright, was the organist at that time. We sang the Metrical Psalms and the few hymns then bound up with the Prayer Book. The _Te Deum_ was generally read, but on high occasions we rendered Jackson’s _Te Deum_. The old _Gloria in Excelsis_ was always sung at the end of the Psalm for the Day in the afternoon, and sometimes Greatore’s _Bonum est_ and _Benedicite_ after the Lesson. On Communion Day, once a month, after sermon, the choir came down in the body of the church, and there was no music. But Easter was distinguished by the choir remaining in the gallery and singing the _Sanctus_. In that church, I was confirmed and ordained to the holy ministry by Bishop John Williams, and, to that church, I came afterwards to preach my first sermon in my native town. One can hardly imagine my feelings, as I came to stand for the first time before my elders, teachers, kindred, and those to whom I had looked up from childhood. It was a trying moment. I preached a written sermon, for fear I might be embarrassed. When it was all over, and some one in the churchyard, during the noon hour, ventured to call it a good sermon, one of the men spoke up and said, ‘_Yes, if he wrote it!_’ Surely, ‘A prophet is not without honor, save in his own country, and among his own kin.’ Stirred by this remark, which came to my knowledge, I preached without notes that afternoon, and did the same upon every visit to New Milford for many years following....

“The Rev. Mr. Acly was a good man, and a conscientious priest of the Church of God; painstaking in his sermon preparation, a good reader and preacher, while as a pastor he went in and out among his people for twenty years beloved by them. He resigned in 1876, but continued to reside here until his death in 1880, and he was buried in the village cemetery, awaiting the resurrection of the just.

“He was succeeded by the Rev. Alfred S. Clark, who was rector from 1876 to 1879. While his stay was only four years, yet he is remembered with much affection. The Rev. Edward L. Wells, D. D., became the next rector, whose eloquence can never be forgotten, and by him was started the project of building a new stone church for Saint John’s Parish. Plans were drawn and accepted, but, in less than a year, he was removed by death, in 1880.

“Rev. Edwin R. Browne succeeded him, and, as the contract for the new church had already been made, he carefully attended to its erection. This was carried forward for two years, and entirely paid for by the congregation, so that on Thursday, the fifteenth day of March, 1883, we all assembled to take part in its consecration.

“The Rt. Rev. John Williams, D. D., Bishop of Connecticut, the Rt. Rev. Charles Quintard, D. D., Bishop of Tennessee, and thirty of the clergy of this and other dioceses, met to put on their vestments in the old church, before proceeding to the new. The emotions which filled my soul on that day were many and varied. It was the last act to be performed in the old Saint John’s Church. I went into our old family pew, where I had grown up to manhood, and, _there_, I put on my vestments. I went up to the chancel rail and, kneeling down, offered the last prayer in that old church--where I had first heard the service of the Book of Common Prayer, first listened to the preaching of the word of God,--whose walls had witnessed my baptism, my confirmation, and my ordination to the holy ministry--and I said, ‘Oh, to have enduring churches of stone, where the holy associations of a lifetime may never be disturbed!’ It was this thought which led me forth to assist in the services of the consecration of the new Saint John’s Church of _stone_, where the services might hereafter continue, undisturbed, from generation to generation. The vested procession of bishops and clergy walked from the old church to the new. The day was full of sunlight, and even the March winds seemed to cease, so as to give us Heaven’s own benediction. We entered this beautiful stone church, filled with a congregation which occupied its whole capacity. Bishop Williams then consecrated this new Saint John’s Church, and called upon me to read the sentence of consecration.

“That day was the greatest red letter day this parish ever saw--twenty-five years ago, on the fifteenth day of March next!

“The Rev. Mr. Browne continued his ministry here until 1890. He was a most indefatigable parish visitor, and the sympathy of his people and their prayers followed him, in the affliction which afterward came upon him.

“He was followed by the Rev. E. T. Sanford, who was the rector from 1891 to 1895, a man of exceedingly lovable character, who endeared himself to all.

“He was succeeded by the Rev. John F. Plumb in 1896, who after eleven years still continues in the rectorship. His character and ability are so well known among his people, that it would not become me to enter into them here. Suffice it, then, to say, that he is held in such honor and respect by his brethren of the clergy of his Diocese, that they elected him Archdeacon of Litchfield County some years ago, which position he now holds with honor to himself, and with appreciation by his parish and friends. May he long continue to go in and out among you as your rector, pastor, friend, and long continue to occupy his high and honorable position, as the venerable Archdeacon of Litchfield County.”

THE AUTOMOBILE PARADE

No feature of the whole Bi-Centennial Celebration partook so much of the nature of an experiment, perhaps, as the Automobile Parade of Monday, which took place a little before noon. It was the first event of the kind that had ever occurred in New Milford, and there were consequently no precedents to go by. It was, however, an unqualified success. Fifteen decorated autos, followed by nearly a score without decorations, were in line. The owners of the decorated autos were:

Henry D. Hine, New Milford, Conn.
Geo. T. Soule, New Milford, Conn.
A. N. Trott, Waterbury, Conn.
H. L. Randall, New Milford, Conn.
Edward S. Hine, New Rochelle, N. Y.
Mrs. Isaac B. Bristol, New Milford, Conn.
Jas. S. Robertson, Pittsfield, Mass.
John Bauman, New Haven, Conn.
E. M. Watson, Sr., Jersey City.
C. F. Long, Jersey City.
Peter Peterson, New Milford, Conn.
C. W. Lines, New Britain, Conn.
J. E. Murphy, Southbury, Conn.
H. Lake, Brookfield, Conn.
Robert Dunlap, New Milford, Conn.

The judges were George B. Noble of Northampton, Mass., Mrs. Dr. Wallace of Glen Ridge, N. J., and Miss Beatrice Fisher of Montreal, Canada.

The three prizes (silver cups) were awarded as follows: Henry D. Hine, New Milford, first; A. N. Trott, Waterbury, Conn., second; Mrs. Isaac B. Bristol, New Milford, third. Robert Dunlap was given a special honorable mention.

The decoration of Mr. Henry Hine’s car was very dainty and elaborate. It was done in white, pink, and purple. In front of the chauffeur was a Cupid, driving three white doves with white and purple ribbons. Before the machine were banners inscribed with the figures 1707-1907. The tonneau was banked with evergreens and wild flowers. The rear tire on the tonneau was covered with a wreath of evergreens, in the center of which was suspended a Cupid with bow and arrow. The chauffeur and the lady passengers wore white and pink.

Mr. Trott’s car bore a canopy of salmon pink, olive green, and white _crêpe_ paper flowers, and carried as passengers Dr. and Mrs. Bragaw in Colonial attire. The wheels and the back of the tonneau were similarly decorated with _crêpe_ paper.

Mrs. Bristol’s car was decorated with laurel, ferns, and white daisies, supplemented by yellow and white bunting, and carried several passengers in white, with daisies in their hair.

Mr. Dunlap’s car was literally covered with grass-green and white draperies and bore an arch of these colors. Its lady passengers wore white gowns and white picture hats trimmed with green.

Mr. Peterson’s car, with a colossal figure of Uncle Sam, and Mr. Randall’s with festoons of lemons, gave rise to much merriment. The other cars were decorated with flags and bunting; Colonial blue and yellow bunting; white and pale-green bunting; daisies and flags; peonies and daisies. The party-colored cars presented a brilliant and beautiful picture, as they coursed rapidly round and round “The Green,” and evoked many outbursts of hearty applause.

THE HISTORICAL MEETING

The Historical Meeting of Monday afternoon, the next important event in the Bi-Centennial Celebration, was presided over by Frederic M. Williams. Mr. Williams, after a few genial words of greeting, introduced, as the first speaker, Dr. Samuel Hart, President of the Connecticut Historical Society, explaining, as he did so, that New Milford welcomes her guests, not only with the best that she has, but with the best that there is.

Dr. Hart spoke as follows:

“The recurring anniversaries of the towns of our ancient State are
bringing before us, as in a series of living pictures, the history
of the whole commonwealth and of all its parts. Beginning, within
the easy memory of many now living, with the quarter-millennials of
the first settled towns, Hartford and its sister towns on the Great
River, Saybrook at its mouth, New Haven on its fair harbor at the
mouth of the Quinnipiac, and then its allied towns, Guilford to the
east and Milford, your mother-city, to the west, we are passing now
to the bi-centennials of those, the history of which begins in the
opening years of the eighteenth century. Our origins have been
brought before us, and we have studied again the men and the times,
the founders of our first colonies and the foundations which they
laid, the early history of two differently ordered federations or
groups of organized communities, and their union into one
government under a charter from the English king which made them
almost independent of his authority. We are passing on now to
another period, when, under varied influences and in changed
circumstances, many of our most beautiful and prosperous towns were
founded. Two years ago Newtown, which once had part of its
boundary-line in common with you, observed its bi-centennial; and
the two-hundredth anniversaries of Derby and Woodbury and Waterbury
and Danbury--to mention only those in this neighborhood--were
earlier than that.

“There was a movement of life into this part of Connecticut, the
meaning and result of which will be brought before you by those who
have studied it in its details, and can describe it with local
color. Without repeating or anticipating their words, I may venture
to ask you to think of the difference which a little more than
seventy years had made in the motives that swayed men’s minds, and
the impressions that were made on them by the new lands which they
occupied. One thinks of the stern resolve, both political and
ecclesiastical, which sent Hooker and his company on their long
walk through the wilderness till they came to the river and crossed
it into a strange land, with a determination like that of the
father of the faithful when he crossed the great river of the
eastern world; and then one questions whether they admired the
beauty of the meadows, and one feels sure that when they climbed
the hills and looked down into the more beautiful valley of the
Tunxis, they were drawn by it to travel still further west. One
follows in mind the military instinct which saw the importance of
the control of the Connecticut River, and built a fort at its
mouth, and levied dues on traffic and transportation, and laid out
streets for the houses of people of quality who were expected to
come to dwell there. And one thinks of the surprises which befell
those who sailed slowly along the shore of the Sound, looking into
inlet and bay, and finding at the Fair Haven a place where they
might build a city after the pattern of the heavenly Jerusalem, and
in it dwell and get gain.

“In each of these early instances there was an element of romance,
of strong conviction of duty, mingled with an appreciation alike of
the beautiful and the practical, that combination which, as Horace
told us long ago, ‘carries every vote.’ To some extent this had
passed away two hundred years ago, when possession was taken of the
farming lands, and the fair, though rugged, hillsides enclosing the
river valley in which we now stand. The settlers, who came up into
the high grounds from the shores of the Sound, did not leave, for
the most part, on account of disagreement with their neighbors in
matters civil or ecclesiastical, nor with a special sense of divine
calling or mission. They were rather led by the Anglo-Saxon spirit
of colonization to settle on new soil, to extend former industries
or to undertake new ones, and to organize new units of life in the
body politic. Still, we cannot doubt that when they, too, looked
over the fields they saw more than the possibility of gathering
harvests and crops from them, and that when they followed the
water-courses they did more than estimate the use which they might
make of the force of the falling stream. They had something of the
enthusiasm of discovery, and something of the joy of those who
first turn nature’s forces to man’s account. It is worth our while,
as we go back in mind to these beginnings, to try to think as they
thought, who first looked upon the natural features of the
landscape, which it takes much more than two centuries materially
to change, and to see why they chose as they did, who fixed on this
spot as their home.

“In this regard, there is in all our settlements, early and late,
something that they have in common, which appeals more, I am
inclined to think, to the philosopher than to the historian.
Perhaps the student of history delights rather in noting the
differences in the plans and purposes of those who settled our
early towns, and in finding in each, as he readily may, some detail
of character or event which marks it with a special interest, and
almost always brings in the suggestion of a special romance. As
your early history is read before you to-day in detail, you are
reminded how it differs from the history of every other town in
Connecticut. At its beginning you hear of names which give it a
stamp peculiarly its own: that of the first minister, continued by
an honorable succession through all the generations to this day;
that of the early settler who lived here in a log hut on land which
he had bought of the Indians and lived to be Attorney General of
Massachusetts; somewhat later, that of the man who came here as a
shoemaker and removed hence as a judge, to become one of the few
leaders in the constitutional history of the land; and with them
the names of others which shed a special luster on your annals.
Again, the importance of the Indians in this neighborhood, both in
numbers and (as it would seem) in influence and character, suggests
an almost unique chapter of history, especially when we note that
it led to the sojourn of the remarkable man who led hither his band
of Moravian missionaries and labored not in vain among the
aborigines before he withdrew to make a permanent settlement in
another province, and later to return to his home in Europe. And,
if you care to boast of it, you share with but one or two other
towns the honor of having had congregations of the Glassites--who
under their name of Sandemanians will always be remembered for
having had in their eldership one of the greatest men of science of
a generation ago--and you have the exclusive honor of having been
the home of the Jemimaites. Certainly, no two communities are
exactly alike, and it is in the study of their differences that
much of our pleasure in the reading of their history consists.

“While I bring to you to-day, Mr. President, a greeting on behalf
of the Historical Society of the State, I venture to ask you and
all the citizens of this venerable town, and all who are interested
in her annals already written, and in the record which she is to
make in years to come, not to allow the interest of these memorial
days to pass away with the days themselves. This week is bringing
to the memory of some of you that which you have already heard with
your ears and your fathers have declared unto you, while it is
teaching many others, and in particular the youths and maidens,
their first lessons in the history of the community in which their
lot is cast. The story of the founders and those who carried on
their work, who they were and what they did, what New Milford was
in itself and what part it played in the State and the Republic,
told again now in greater detail than it has ever been told
before--do not let it be soon or readily forgotten. See to it that
the whole town becomes a sort of historical society, for the
appreciation and preservation of that which is old, for the
lending of a proper perspective to that which belongs to our own
day, for preparation rightly to understand and rightly to value and
use that which is coming. They best do the duties of the present,
they best provide for the future, who read and value the lessons of
the past.”

The second speaker, Chief Justice Baldwin, was presented to the audience by Mr. Williams with these words: “New Milford has had many notable and useful citizens during her two centuries of existence, but she has had none as illustrious as Roger Sherman. We have with us to-day one of his descendants, Simeon E. Baldwin, LL. D., Ex-President of the American Bar Association, Ex-President of the American Historical Society, Ex-President of the International Law Association, and Chief Justice of Connecticut, who will now address you.

* * * * *

Chief Justice Baldwin then delivered the following address on “ROGER SHERMAN”:

“The rarest and most ill-defined class of human beings is that of
great men. Only those belong to it who have done a great work in a
great way. The ‘mute, inglorious Milton’ is not to be reckoned
among them. They number none, however great their natural gifts or
acquired attainments, who have not made for themselves, by their
own merits, a place in the history of their times. It is from their
lives, indeed, that history gains its color and its inspiration.

“It was the good fortune of New Milford to be the home of such a
man in the middle of her first century of existence.

“It was a hundred and sixty-four years ago, this very month that a
tall and well-set young fellow of two and twenty ended in this town
a toilsome journey, taken on foot from the neighborhood of Boston.
He had come to make New Milford his home, bringing on his back the
tools of his trade--that of a shoemaker--and with their aid he here
gained for a year or two an honest livelihood.

“A shoemaker and the son of a shoemaker, he had, and felt he had,
capabilities for a larger work. His mind was already

Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Connecticut]

set on that of a surveyor. For this, too, he fitted himself well;
but there was that before him of which he did not think. He was to
fill a long succession of official trusts, affecting all the
Colonies and the States which succeeded them, to be bestowed upon
him at a time of great events, and to be so well discharged as to
make him one of the great figures of American history.

“When Connecticut, a few years ago, was called upon by the nation
to choose the two of her sons whose statues should be set in the
Capitol at Washington, there could be no question as to one. The
land of steady habits must, at all events, be represented in that
place by Jonathan Trumbull, the War Governor of the
Revolution,--the Brother Jonathan who typified to the nation the
rugged virtues and hard good sense of the New England character.

“The other statue also must belong to the same great era, the era
which began with the struggle for independence, and closed with the
attainment of settled constitutional government. Our heroes must be
taken from that which above all others was our heroic age. Should
we thus commemorate the impetuous gallantry of Putnam, the noble
death of Hale, the courtly eloquence of Johnson, the judicial power
of Ellsworth? All these were sons of Connecticut, born upon her
soil. No. She chose one born and bred to manhood in another State;
not trained at her college, nor at her schools; not at any schools.
She sought to put the form and features of Roger Sherman into
marble, to show to all time what qualities and achievements the
people of Connecticut hold in most honor. This man, without
eloquence, with no advantages of education, with no grace of
manner, was her choice--taken from many, for solid qualities, not
shining ones; for a life-long love of liberty, but only as it was
regulated by law; for steadfast devotion to duty; for practical
sagacity; for calm, and sound judgment in things both small and
great. Such a character wears well. It is men of this stamp that
have made Connecticut what she is.

“Roger Sherman was born to a great opportunity. So was every child
born in the American colonies during the years between 1720 and
1760. Those colonies were then assuming proportions inconsistent
with the long maintenance of British dominion over a territory so
distant and a people so enterprising and intelligent. The day was
soon to come when they would strike for liberty. Who were to be the
leaders, then?

“Massachusetts was to furnish her full share, and two of them grew
up, in neighboring towns, to begin life as apprentices and end it
as statesmen.

“Franklin was already at work in a Boston printing office, when
Sherman, in 1721, was born in Newton. Neither had any advantages of
education. Franklin’s schooling ended when he was about ten, and
Sherman was apprenticed to a shoemaker and began to learn his trade
at an age not much greater. He had hardly acquired it when his
father, then living at Stoughton, Massachusetts, died, and he
found, at the age of nineteen, that the main charge of a numerous
family of younger brothers and sisters, as well as of his mother,
must thenceforward rest upon his shoulders. Three years of struggle
upon the small farm, which his father left, satisfied him that to
support this load he must seek some more remunerative employment.

“An elder brother had previously removed to this town, then a
frontier settlement. Connecticut was the West of that day to the
towns of eastern Massachusetts. It was the place for more than a
century where many of the most active and enterprising sons of the
older colony had gone to found new homes and breathe a freer air.
Connecticut, it will be recollected, had preserved her charter and
elected her own governors. Massachusetts, for half a century, had
received hers from the crown.

“Sherman resolved to join his brother, and the whole family were
united in New Milford in 1743. From the early years of his
apprenticeship he had been in the habit, as he bent over his last,
of keeping a book open on his bench, to the study of which he gave
what moments he could occasionally snatch from his work. In this
way, and in his hours of leisure, he had been able to pick up the
elements of a good English education, and to make considerable
attainments in mathematics and plane geometry. One object of his
removal to Connecticut had been to put this knowledge to practical
use by engaging in the business of a surveyor.

“Those were days when the quick division of land, from the great
blocks included in colonial patents granted for the formation of a
new township, into numerous small farms, called far more frequently
than now for the services of men who could run a line with
precision and describe it in the proper terms of art. Within two
years from his arrival at New Milford, he had fitted himself to
engage in this business, and received from the General Assembly the
appointment of a Surveyor of Lands for the County of New Haven; for
New Milford was then a part of that county, Litchfield County not
having been created until 1751.

“This office of County Surveyor was a responsible one. Whoever held
it took an oath, prescribed by statute, to discharge its duties
‘without Favour or Respect to Persons,’ and, if he had occasion to
employ chainmen for his assistance, was to administer to each of
them an oath, adjuring them ‘by the ever living God’ to keep and
render a true account of whatever lines and measures they might
take.[18]

“That there is an ever living God, who is the supreme authority on
earth as in heaven, has always been the faith of Connecticut, and
shines through all her statute books. From 1640 down to the present
hour it has been part of the solemn ceremonial--solemn to those who
stop to think of what it is and what it means--of admission to the
privileges of a freeman or elector, that every man shall with
uplifted hand swear that with God’s help, whenever he shall be
called to give his vote, he will give it as he shall judge will
conduce to the best good of the commonwealth, without respect of
persons or favor of any man. How many of us, on each election day,
bethink ourselves of the high obligation to which we have thus
pledged ourselves, and ask the help we have invoked to act our part
as voters ‘without respect of persons or favor of any man’?

“I doubt if Roger Sherman, as a County Surveyor, needed the weight
of an official oath to bind him to his duty, but I doubt not that
his sense of duty was bottomed on a sense of God, and that honesty
and Christianity were to him, from boyhood on, one and inseparable.

“He had joined the Stoughton church a few weeks before he came of
age. It was a time, in the year 1742, in which were gathered in the
fruits of religious awakening in New England. Our churches had
lapsed into formalism; and dogmatic belief had been accorded a
prominence which threw Christian conduct into the background.
Seventeen hundred forty-two was a marked year in the course of the
returning tide towards better things.

“In 1749 Sherman used his mathematical attainments for a new
purpose. He prepared an almanac for 1750, which was published in
New York, and was the first of a series which he put out during a
considerable period of years.

“By this time he had saved some money, and, in 1750, we find him
putting part of his capital, in partnership with his elder brother,
into a country store. This was a business in which he was
interested first at New Milford, and then at New Haven, with a
branch at Wallingford, for more than twenty years.

“The country store then, as now in the more thinly settled
communities, was in miniature the department store of our modern
cities. There were few of them, and their customers came from a
wide circuit of country. The trade was largely one of barter. The
farmer’s wife drove in with her cheese and butter, and might go
back with stuff for a dress, a box of needles, a new coffee-pot, a
bottle of salts, a loaf of sugar, a quintal of codfish, and perhaps
a volume of sermons. The store was not daily visited by drummers.
The proprietor went himself every few months to Boston or Newport,
New York or Philadelphia, to replenish his stock, and with every
such journey found his mental horizon broadened, and felt better
acquainted with the great world of men and things that lay beyond
the limits of his own neighborhood.

“Sherman, from the first, made the most of these glimpses of a
larger life. If he rode down to New Haven to buy West India
molasses, he would visit the college to ask President Clap’s
opinion about the probable course of an expected comet.[19] If he
went to New York to correct the proofs of his almanac, he would
take the opportunity to find a publisher for some pamphlet he had
written on the financial errors in the legislation of the day.

“Sherman, by this time, had acquired the faculty, rarer, perhaps,
then than now, of expressing his thoughts in writing, in a fashion
that was simple, clear, and straightforward. An artificial,
overwrought, and overladen style of composition, if not the
prevailing one, was certainly not uncommon among Americans during
the middle of the eighteenth century. He wrote, as Franklin did, in
the plain language of familiar conversation, with no straining
after effect. I do not mean that he wrote as well as Franklin.
There was a long, long interval between them; but they were of the
same school. Both were men who thought more of what they had to say
than of how they said it; of communicating facts or ideas, rather
than of seeking to make them attractive by ornament.

“Sherman’s reading was of a kind that both strengthened and
disciplined the mind. The first President Dwight, in summing up his
character, emphasized ‘his attachment to books of real use,’ adding
that he ‘was, what very few men unacquainted with the learned
languages are, accurately skilled in the grammar of his own
language.’[20]

“It is probable, however, that in paying this tribute to an old
friend who had passed away, President Dwight had in mind Sherman’s
style of written composition, rather than his ordinary manner of
speech. It is seldom that one born to poverty and denied the common
advantages of education, escapes a certain rusticity, to say the
least, not only in his choice of words in conversation, but in
their arrangement and pronunciation.

“A franker, and I dare say juster, portrait of the man as he
appeared in public discussions and debate is given in a series of
rough notes of the doings of the Convention of 1787 which framed
our national Constitution, made by one of the Southern delegates,
William Pierce of Georgia.

“‘Mr. Sherman,’ he writes, ‘exhibits the oddest shaped character I
ever remember to have met with. He is awkward, un-meaning, and
unaccountably strange in his manner. But in his train of thinking
there is something regular, deep, and comprehensive; yet the oddity
of his address, the vulgarisms that accompany his public speaking,
and that strange New England cant which runs through his public as
well as his private speaking make everything that is connected with
him grotesque and laughable;--and yet he deserves infinite
praise,--no Man has a better Heart or a clearer Head. If he cannot
embellish he can furnish thoughts that are wise and useful. He is
an able politician, and extremely artful in accomplishing any
particular object; it is remarked that he seldom fails. I am told
he sits on the Bench in Connecticut, and is very correct in the
discharge of his Judicial functions. In the early part of his life
he was a Shoe-maker; but, despising the lowness of his condition,
he turned Almanack maker, and so progressed upwards to a Judge. He
has been several years a Member of Congress, and discharged the
duties of his Office with honor and credit to himself, and
advantage to the State he represented. He is about 60.’