Address at the Centenary of St. Paul's Church, Norwalk, Conn.

and son, and grandsons, have been connected with the vestry, and on Easter Monday last his great-great-grandson was made a member of the same body. He was chosen, in 1754, to “time the psalm and give the pitch,” and the old instrument which he used in this choir one hundred and thirty years ago is in existence to-day. He lies a few feet from this chancel. His grandson, Daniel, who died in 1865, belonged to St. Paul’s until the formation, in 1833, in West- port, of Christ Church parish, so named by Dr. Kemper, and it appears from a roll, kept by Dr. Kemper, that of his thirty-four Westport communicants, nearly half the number bore the name of Nash. The story of the lives of Micajali, of 1754, and of Daniel, of 1792, and Daniel, Jr., of 1821, and Dennis, for sixteen years vestry- man, is the story of stability and worth — of patience and persever- ance combined with unimpeachable honesty. Mention may here be made of the grateful circumstance that, since the days of the burning, three direct descendants of the vestrymen of St. Paul’s have themselves built as many temples to the honor of God. We refer to the Church of the Good Shepherd, Hartford,* and the Church of the Holy Cross, Troy, New York,f and the new Christ Church, Westport. J While those who have gone from us — five daughters — have each of them a parish church, two in Westport, one in New Canaan, one in Wilton, and one in South Norwalk. And all of them are here represented to-day through their earnest- spirited rectors and pastors. § We attach no importance to the legend as to King George’s soldiers and his torch on our church step, but, granting its truth, there have been worse prophets than he. J onathan Camp was the head of a family the history of which has largely been a chronicle of deeds for the church. Like his ances- tors before and his descendants after him, the Jonathan Camp of a century age was not of the fearing and trembling, but of the un - from the Indians, by Roger Ludlow and Edward’s son, John, is the child re- ferred to. This John Nash had a son, John, who was born on Christmas day, 1688, which John was the father of Micajah, chorister in 1754, and Micajah was the grandfather of Daniel, who was father of the present Messrs. Edward H. and Andrew C. Nash, of Westport, and their deceased sisters, Julia Ann (Mrs. Joseph Wood) and Hannah (Mrs. Ezra Morgan, of Newtown.) * Built by Mrs. Elizabeth H. Colt. t Built by Mrs. Nathan Warren. $ Built mainly by Messrs. Edward H. and Andrew C. Nash. g Since the reading of this paper and as it is about to be sent to press, one of these clergymen, after twenty-six years’ arduous and self-unspairing rec- torship, has departed this life. The Rev. John Robinson Williams, rector, from 1860 to 1886, of Christchurch, Westport, was a sterling character. Sound, solid, sincere, patient, prudent, of strict honor and honesty, of great goodness of heart, and one who could be implicitly trusted, his example is a pattern, and his memory a blessed one. He died on Tuesday morning, October 26, 1886. 35 flinching type of churchman ship, and a staunch supporter of the parish. He was a practical man, and a man of principle, and con- tributed of his means, and brought material from his farm, and did and kept on doing as a matter of course. A hundred years ago last month he was appointed to office, and his son, Jonathan, in 1818, to the wardenship, and his grandson, Jonathan, Jr , in 1825, to the vestry, and, in 1868, to the upper office. The late bearer of the name enjoyed the family traditions, stood ready to assist the church at home, and rejoiced to learn of its progress abroad. The closing years of his usefulness were signalized by efforts for the permanent establishment of the church in South Norwalk.* Goold Hoyt is another name which adorns our parish page. He is introduced as leading, in 1780, in a subscription for the building fund of that year. He was elected church warden, in 1781, and himself and Thomas Belden, together, held the position until the death of Mr. Hoyt, in 1803, during fourteen years of which time he was society’s clerk also, and it is doing no injustice to his cotem- poraries to dedicate to him a mention which his intelligent interest in our welfare has caused him richly to merit. The parish could have made choice of no truer and more capable man than Goold Hoyt to fill its highest lay offices. His term of office embraced the period covered by the administrations of Drs. Dibble and Bowden, and Revs. Foot and George Ogilvie, and Dr. William Smith, and the beginning of the rectorship of Rev. Henry Whit- lock. He united with Thomas Belden in a letter to Bishop Seabury, acquainting the latter of the call, on the part of the parish, to the Rev. Mr. Ogilvie, and he records the adoption, in April, 1793, by the parish, of the “Constitution of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the State of Connecticut, as agreed upon by the clerical and lay delegates in convention at New Haven, June 6th, 1792.” Mr. Hoyt was the father of the late Goold Hoyt, Esq., of New York, whose generous legacy to it is very justly acknowledged, by the parish, upon the inscribed marble before the front of this edi- fice, and also of Ebenezer Dimon Hoyt, father of the late Munson and Edwin Hoyt, and of the surviving Mrs. Charles Hoyt and Mrs. J ohn Cleveland. Mr. Ebenezer D. Hoyt appears upon the parish record first, in 1813. His name is often repeated, and was not dropped until his death, in 1824. He was a worthy son, and is thought of with pleasure. The venerable James Moody Hoyt, * With his son Jonathan, of New Jersey, he took great pleasure in surveying and laying out the lot for Trinity Church and parsonage, South Norwalk. 36 vestryman, in 1854, was cousin, and the late James A. Hoyt, second cousin of the first Goold Hoyt.* Ebenezer Church, Sr., was a marked man of the parish century just completed, as was his son, Ebenezer, who had evidently been carefully educated church wise, and educated under the conviction that to be a thorough churchman one must first know. Ebenezer, Jr., was a reader, as were his three brothers, Josiah, Isaac and John, and his sister, Betsey, of commendable deeds. Our old peo- ple were not altogether ignorant as to old authors and authorities. There are volumes of very clever theology which are bethumbed, and worn, and for the contents of which their owners, such as Stephen Betts, for instance, and Hezekiah Jarvis, and this same Ebenezer Church, seem to have been thirsty, t These men, we repeat, read. Their belief was not a matter of liking; it was their judgment — their enlightened and consummate judgment that the truth lay in the creeds and articles of the church of which they were members; and no parish could be weak with such an element in it. So great was his reverence for the Word of God that it was the practice, with Josiah Church, to rise in his pew and remain stand- ing while the scripture lessons were being read. The Isaacs name covers quite a page of our history. Ralph Isaacs was a very early elected parish warden. He was one of nine who gave £20 each for the purpose of meeting the expense incurred in plastering, in 1749, the church which was burned, in 1779. He advanced the funds for the building of the first parson- age, and was the largest of several contributors and subscribers * Goold Hoyt, Sr., built the comfortable Edwin Hoyt house and occupied it immediately after his marriage to Miss Elizabeth Dimon, of Fairfield. Mrs. Hoyt, in 1779, herself petitioned one of Tryon’s aids that he would interpose his authority and save the house from burning. Her petition prevailed, and the generous lady asked that her neighbor’s house on the right hand corner above, (formerly the Jennings,now the McClure property) might also be spared, which, it is said, was done. Goold Hoyt’s five children were : Thomas, born, in 1767, who built what was afterward known as the Henry Belden house; and Goold, born, in 1769, who removed to New York City; and Esther, born, in 1773, who married Henry Belden; and Ebenezer D., born, in 1776; who married Miss Huldah Hanford, and for whom was built the commodious Charles E. St. John house; and Munson, born, in 1781, who lived in New York, and was one of the most skilled and accurate accountants of his day. Isaac Hoyt, the father of the late Charles Hoyt, Esq., and of Mary, the mother of General William T. Sherman, one of the first soldiers of modern times, and of the Hon. John Shermaii, United States Senator, lived in South Norwalk, in the house, still standing, on the line of the street, the first dwell- ing west of the grounds of the late A. E. Beard. Miss Mary Hoyt, daughter of Isaac Hoyt, married Charles R. Sherman, whose home was the Nathan Beers site on Main street. Charles R. Sherman was son of Taylor Sherman, a Nor- walk lawyer, who is buried on Town House Hill. tThe favorite reading of one of the Church brothers was Bishop Horne on the Psalms. It was the practice of another former member of St. Paul’s, to take two candles with her, when she retired, that when the first was burned out the second might be lighted, and the reading continued. 37 for the benefit of the church from 1757 to 1759. He lived on the east side of upper East Avenue, at the foot of the north slope of Grumman’s Hill, and built for one of his children the Isaacs house, an interesting relic to the lovers of historical truth, which has recently been removed.* His son, Captain Benjamin, the *Tliis house was a landmark. It was a last century structure, with chim- ney of “Tubor-bulk,” and spacious hearths, which the ruddy Are had for gen- erations lighted up; and the substantial edifice, with its rear “kitchen” and adjoining orchard, and green lawns, and garden grounds, and native shrub- bery, and grass-imbedded stepping-stones, and paths, bordered with old fashioned • box,” was a picture of ancient and aristocratic comfort; and al- though a pretentious temple set apart to human benevolence, has supplanted it, still it is regrettfully admitted that the ancestral mansion is numberod among the things that were.