History of Fairfield County, Connecticut

The first church edifice, as mentioned above, was completed in 172o, and was located on .Mill Plain, near the residence of the late .lonathan Sturges. In 17I1S liberty was given t;i " the members of the Church of Knglaud. upon certain conditions, to erect a house for ]iublic worship on the highway near the Old Fields-<;ate." It was fifty-five by thirty -five feet in size, twenty feet in height, "with a handsome stceide and spire of one hundred feet and :i good bell of five hundredweight." This church was burned by the Uritish in 1779, and for about twelve years the jiarish was destitute of a convenient place of worshi]i. The third church edifice was cre-ted in about the year 17illl, and was located on the parailc-ground at ^lill I'lain. This was oceu]iied until the conndelion of the fourth church building, in l.H.I.'i. Mr. Caner remained until 1747, when he removed to Huston, aiid was succeeiled by Rev. .lose]ih Lanison, who officiated as rector until his death. He was in- terred in the old colonial liurying-ground. He was liillowed in the ministry by Kev. .Tohn Sayre, wdio was rector when the town was burned liy tlie liritisb, in 17711. Tlie fir;t rector of the ]iarish after the Revolution was Rev. Philo Shelton, of honored memory, a grjtdu- ate of Yale College, who was ordaineil at the first or- dination held by Bishop Se;diury, Aug. '■'>, nw. Mr. Shelton commenced lay reading here ;d)out six weeks after the burning of the t<iwn, whidi he continued until his ordination, in 17S.'i. Uev. Mr. Shelton served this parish failhfully for nearly forty years. He died Feb. 27, 1.^2."i. He was btirii in Ripton (now Huntington), May '), 17')4. He was succeeded by his son, the Rev. William Shelton, who remained until 1829. He was succeeded by Rev. 354 HISTORY OF FAIRFIELD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT. Charles Smith. Mr. Smith resigned in 1834, and Rev. TC. E. Cornwall, M.A., became rector, and offici- ated until 1854. The succe.^sion since that time has been as follows: .1. S. Purdy, 1855-57; Rufiis Emery, 1858-70; E. L. Wells, 1870-76; T. F. Ca.skey, 1877- 79; C. S. Adams, 1879, present rector. ST. PAUL'S CUORCH.* Early in the year 1707 the " Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Part.s" sent out from England the Rev. Mr. Muirson,t who visited Fairfield at irreg- ular intervals, officiating at the homes of families by invitation. Alter the death of Rev. Mr. Muirson, which oc- curred in the latter part of 1708, occasional services ■were held by Revs. Talbot, Sharpe, and liridge, of New York and New Jersey ; but until 1722, when Rev. Mr. Pigot was sent out, no regular services were observed. It was at Stratford that Rev. Mr. Pigot was located, whicii town seems to share with Fairfield the honor of establishing the oldest Epi.seopal parish in our State, services being alternated between tliese places, and held at ajjpointed occasions. The form wa-s that of the Churcli of England and the house of Mr. Tliomas Ilanford tlie place of service wlien Rev. Mr. Pigot was present, altliougli the Episcopaliau families met formally every Sunday. In 1723, Dr. James Laborie, an eminent French physician, came here from Stratford, and purchased the dwelling of Mr. Isaac Jennings, known as "the stone liouse upon the rocks," — i)robal)ly the same wliicli he afterwards devoted entirely to the ehurcli, — in wiiich he held services on the Sundays when Rev. Mr. Pigot was absent. The first reliable record of the establishment of a separate and distinct organization of an Episcopal parish in Fairfield is that of Rev. Samuel Johnson, who succeeded Rev. Mr. Pigot in 1724, wiio regularly administered tlie rites of the Ciiurch of England, and who at this time reports: "The church in Fairfield is going on apace." Nov. 10, 1725, the day of annual thanksgiving appointed by the civil authorities. Rev. Mr. Johnson ojicned with an appropriate service and discourse the original Trinity church, whicli was lo- cated a few rods northeast of the present residence of Mr. .lonatlian Sturges, in Mill Plain. A few tomb- stones, until quite recently, marked the spot, one of whicli bore the inscription : Abraham Adams, worthy founder and benefactor of Trinity Church. Rev. Mr. Johnson divided his time between Strat- ford and Fairfield for about two years, being succeeded by Rev. Henry Caner, who was graduated at Yale College, ordained in England in 1727, and appointed missionary to Fairfield. From this period until the Revolution permanence and prosperity are indicated from the facts that the parish included one liundred • Contributed l)y WUIlun A. Itoen. t lleatlicotu Mulreon (prubablj hltt suii) lira among tlio colonlula. and seventy families, and that in 1732 the church was enlarged, a gallery sufficient to seat two hundred per- sons being added. It ajjpears that even these extensive additions soon became inadequate, and in 1738 a more complete edi- fice was built on the highway, near Old Field Gate, where, a few years since, stood the Marine Hotel, de- stroyed by fire in 18G0. This second church was a fine, conspicuous edifice. Its dimensions were fifty- five feet in length, twenty feet in height, and thirty- five feet in width, with a steeplet of the unusual height, at that period, of one hundred feet. Rev. Mr. Caner continued his work here until failing health in 1747 compelled him to seek a smaller par- ish, greatly to the general regret, as he was singularly beloved, and had been very successful in building up the church, which at his departure numbered among its congregation two hundred communicartts. His successor was Rev. Joseph Lamson, a native of the vi- cinity, whose ministry of twenty-si.\ years terminated only at his death, and whose resting-place is marked by a stone in the old burial-ground of the village. Rev. John Sayre§ succeeded in 1774. He Wiis a talented and successful clergj'man, but, being a native of Great Britain, refused to sign articles prescribed by the Continental Congress, and seems to have been subjected to a temporary banishment to New Britain. This suspension, however, was of brief duration, as his parishioners soon eflected his return, and he con- tinued his offices until Trinity church was destroyed by the burning of Fairfield by the British troops, July 8, 1779. It is an act of historic justice to Rev. Mr. Sayre to state that he used every endeavor to avert the disaster by both protest an<l entreaty ; that his private effects, including a valuable librarj', shared the general fate; and that, though he took refuge on a British man-of-war after the conflagration, the purity of his motives and acts was above suspicion. One month after this terrible calamity meetings were held at the house of Mr. John Sherwood (the great-grandfather of Mrs. C. A. Short, to whom we are indebted for much valuable material in this church history), at whicli it was determined to erect yet another edifice. Mill Plain being again selected for the site. This edifice was the scene of the first ordination by Bishop Seabury, the first bishop of Connecticut, an event of the profoundest interest to all churchnien. The recijiient of this peculiar honor was Kev. Pliilo Shelton, who served at the altar thus signalized upwards of forty years. He died in Feb- ruary, 1825.11 A memorial tablet built in the chancel { From which Somaol Bowland law tho BtlUsh land In Fairfield In Jiilr, 1770. g Itcv. John 8a)'ro and sovoml of liU family He In the old "coloninl** bur.vln;;.^roiln(l. I His body van placed, by hit wlnli. nndor tho church, wbkh, when torn (liiwn. was ouiveycd to Mnuntiitn (JmTo Omelcrj'. BridgeiJort, Conn. Tlie tieU from till* rliiinh wmi ui"'.l in tile rniven*:ill«l rliunli. Weptlmrt. for ft lime, when It wntt Nniglit Iiy the Mt'thiwliKt i>r^iiiiiutti<iii, uiel !.■» DOW used in their church lo WMlport, FAIRFIELD. 355 Willi was a ooiispiciKius iinuiaiciit, ami lie is still teu- (K'rly remembered by many now liviiifr as " tlie devout anil dear old man who tanglit ns the eateehism." Kev; William Shelton, the iKJiiori'd son of this revered lather, sueeeede<l, reiiiaininj; nntil 1S20, when lie was ealled to fst. Paul's Cluireh in Tiurtido, wliere, at the age of eig:hty-two, he still ofhc'iates (the writer of this has a letter, under date of July 30, bS.SO, in wliieh this venerable divine and excellent fjentleman tenderly alludes to his own and hisfathei''s eonneetion with the eliureh in Fairfield). Kev. ('buries Smith took eharue in IS.'SO, eontinu- ing four years, until a new ehai)el was built in 1-^outh- ]Mirt. and Kev. X. E. Cornwall assumed the duties of the two I'liurehes. RefTidar services at Mill Plain now began to be iin- fre'Un'nt, and were finally discontinued; the reason for wliieli was that a majority of tlie attendants, wdio residi'd nearer Southport, were of o[iinion that the Mill Plain church was, in view of the size of the ]>arisli, a superfluity. A warm iliscussion aro.se, the matter was. snlimitted toarl)itration, a decision adverse to the minority was rendered, and to the great sorrow of F.]iiseo]iaIians in the vicinity, the .'Mill Plain church was torn down and portions of it utilized in the con- struction of a rectory at Southiiort. As a reminis- cence recalling the ]irejtidices of those times, it is well to record that the arbitrators whose votes turned the scale were Presbyterians, and a tr.idition has been handed down that the decision was n<it wholly dis- connected with a PuritaiHc desire to put the "Church of Fngland" as far away as |)ossible. It was nearly twenty years alter that jiractical eflbrts were made to revi\(' the parish and build another church. The families with Episcopalian jireferences living here at that time might have been counted on one's fingers, Iiut among them were men and women who were full of the spirit that builds up the kingdom of Christ. .Ofthe.se, the namei? of Knapp, (ilover, and Ogden deserve honor.able place in history. To the late Henry A. Kna])p, however, whoso indomi- table work, both of soul and hands, was, through numy trying years, pre-eminently eonsiiicuous, must be accorded chiefest honor for the [)ermanent establish- ment of the present parish and church of .St. Paul's in I'airfield.