History of Fairfield County, Connecticut

" After preaching acceptably to the church for twenty-five years, Mr. White changed his theological views, adopting substantially the Sandemanian belief. He was complained of to the Association in 1763, ' as holding and teaching false doctrine, and presented to the council of the Consociation for trial.' The council met at Danbury Aug. 1, 17ti3. The church {a major- ity of whom su;;tained Jlr. White) objected to the authority of the council on the ground that it was a ( Congregational Church, and not amenable to any outside body. The objection was not allowed ; from which we may infer that councils in those days (at least in Connecticut) were something more than 'ad- visory.' After a five days' session the result reached was 'that Mr. White should have a three months' probation to sec if he would not preach to the ac- ceptance of his hearers.' He did not, however, give satisfaction, and on Jan. 3, 1764, a joint council of both the Fairfiehl Consociations met to consider his case. Mr. White, with a majority of the church, de- nied the jurisdiction of the council and renounced the platform ; but the council went forward and found him guilty of hereby, tad put him on probation again until the last Tucsdav in March. .\t that time the council met again and dismissed him from his pastor- ate under censure. The majority of the church still adhering to Mr. White, the council recognized the minority as constituting the First Consoeiated Church in Danbury, and left the seceding majority to them- selves'. At the solicitation of Mr. White the council convened again the following September to state upon what terms he could be relieved from censure. Tin terms given were declined by Mr. White, and he wa~ never restored to fellowship. "The seceding party, declaring themselves inde- pendent of Consociation, formed a new church organ- ization, which received the name of the ' New Dan- bury Church.' Retaining Mr. White as piu^tor, they built a meeting-house in 1768, which nine years later was burned by the British. The church was greatly weakened by the loss of their meeting-house and by defections to the Sandemanians, am(mg which wa.-^ that of Rev. Ebenezer Russell White (son of Rev. Ebenezer White), who in 1768 had become colleague pastor with his father. In 1779, Rev. Ebenezer White died, and shortly thereafter the 'New Danbury Church' became extinct. " The name White has been a prominent and hon- I orcd name in Danburv for the last century, the line of Rev. Ebenezer White's descendants having been continuous to the present, and finding its representa- tives in Danbury to-day in the families of Mr. Wil- liam R. White, Mr. Thilo White, and Col. Nelson L. White. " This church, weakened by the secession of a ma- jority of its members, did not secure another pastor after the dismi.ssion of Mr. White until two years had elapsed. In February, 1765, Mr. Noadiah A\'ar- ner was ordained pastor, but his pastorate was brief and much interrupted by efibrts that were made to secure the return of the .seceders, he on two occjusion- consenting to relinquish his pulpit for several month- that candidates might be listened to by both partie-. it being understood that if a man was found upon whom all coubl unite Jlr. Warner would resign in his favor. Variances about pecuniary matters and a lack of the spirit of concession thwarted these efl'orts, bni I they disturbed the relations of Mr. Warner to thr church to the extent that he sought a dismission at the expiration of the third year of his pastorate. " From the sociiiy records, which date back to 1 75.'), it appears that on April 3, 1760. a call to the pa.«torati' was given by the church and society to 'the worthy Jeremiah Day,' who had for a few weeks supplie<l th'' pulpit, but, the vote of the society standing twenty- eight opposed to the call to forty-seven in favor, and the vote to give him a yearly salary of seventy-five pounds, with a settlement of one hundred and fifty pounds standing forty-six in favor, opjxised forty- three, he did not accept. Doubtless this ri'sult seemed disappointing at the time, but Providence w;l< not altogether unkind, as by his brief connection with the church he gained for himself a wife, he being DANBURY. 219 married the following yenr to Jliss Luey AVood, one of the young-lady members of the ehureh. "In the summer of 1770, Mr. Ebenezer Baldwin accepted a call to the church. The earliest reeonls of the church in existence begin with the minutes of the council that convened for his settlement, Sept. 19, 1770. The sermon upon the occasion was j)reached by President Daggett, of Yale College. The brief statement of Eobbins' sermon respecting Mr. Bald- win is that "he officiated with great reputation to the ministry till a sudden death terminated his labors, Oct. 15, 177(3, — a man of great talents and learning' (he was the second scholar of his class in college), 'a constant student, grave in his manners, a constant and able supporter of the sound doctrines of the gos- pel.' (After the defection of Jlr. White, xoiiiidiirs-'i in the faith would beyond question be the first ijnalifica- tion demanded in a pastor.) During his ministry of six years there were added to the full eommuuion of the church lifty-four. Ten were admitted to tlie half- way covenant. " The practice of the churches of that day was to allow baptiz.ed persons who did not profess conversion to assent to the church covenant, which act brought them into connection witli and under the jurisiliction of the church, although they did not join in com- munion. "Mr. Baldwin married sixty-eight eoupk's. He baptized one liuiidred and thirteen eliildren, and attended one hundred and lorty-nine Ihiierals. The summer of 177o was a period of great mortality in Danbury, and of the one hundred and tliirty deaths in town that year eighty-two were within the limits of the First Society, and sixty-two funerals were I attended by Mr. Baldwin in the three months of j June, July, and August. , "The pastorate of Mr. Baldwin covered those ! exciting years in the national history that preee<led and marked the commencement of the Revolution. At that day no class of citizens was more conspicuous for patriotism, or more powerfully contributed to arouse the spirit of resistance to the despotic acts of the British government and to prcjiare the minds of the people for the great struggle of the Revolution, than the Congregational clergy of New England, and among them Mr. Baldwin was conspicuous by his zeal : and signal ability. Almost all the writing for the ; public prints at that day was done by the clergy. In 1774 he prepared and published a spirited address [to the people of the western ])art of the colony to arouse them to a sense of the danger in which their liberties were involved. In November, 1776, on the day set apart for Thanksgiving in the colony of Con- necticut, at a period which he regarded as the most calamitous the British colonies ever beheld, he preached a sermon designed to wake up the spirits lof the people in the important and dangerous strug- igle in which they were engaged. This sermon had at the time great celebrity. So excellent, encouraging, and appropriate was it that it was called for and l)rinted at the expense of a leading member of the Episcopal Church. A coi>y of it is preserved in the archives of tlie New York Historical Society. Mr. Baldwin, with the other ministers of tlie Association, arranged a series of circular fasts in the churches rif Fairfield County, in the spring of 177ii, on 'account of the threatening aspect of the jiuldic affairs.'