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

ford a school for boys which he continued until 1796, when he was called to the principalship of the Episcopal Academy in Cheshire, which office he immediately accepted. In October following he was unanimously elected Bishop of Connecticut ; but on account of impaired health he declined the high honor and remained in Cheshire until 1802, when he accepted the chair of moral philos- ophy and belles lettres offered him by the faculty of Columbia College. This position was congenial to him and he filled it until compelled by infirmity to surrender it, and the life story of the first rector of the first church consecrated by Bishop Seabury in this country, is epitomised in the latin epitaph of a gently raised tablet which stands in the quiet cemetery of Ballston, Saratoga county, New York, and which reads : “ The Trustees of Colum- bia College, New York, set up this marble, sacred to the memory of John Bowden, T). D., professor of moral philosophy and polite literature in the said college. By birth he was an Irishman, by training an American, in benevolence a citizen of the whole world. From the first a son and strenuous defender of the Church of England, its truly catholic faith he taught, inculcated, expounded, declared in his writings, adorned in his life. Having diligently performed his collegiate offices, honored, or rather lov- ed by all, at length, worn out by years and labors, he departed this life at the age of 66 years, on the last day of July, in the year of redemptionl817.”* The parish, at a meeting held Sept. 21st, 1789, passed that a committee should wait upon the Rev. Mr. Foot, at that time vis- iting in the place, to ascertain whether he would assume its tem- porary care. The committee reporting that he would remain for six months, the meeting adjourned with a vote binding the en- gagement and the receiving from the retiring Dr. Bowden, who was present, the generous donation of twenty pounds sterling. Mr. Foot’s term of engagement expired, and on the first Tuesday in May, 1790, the Rev. George Ogilvief was chosen rector of the *A copy of this epitaph was kindly forwarded to Norwalk by a Ballston friend. The date of Dr. Bowden’s death is rendered, as the author believes a native Roman would have read it, viz., July 31st. It is possible, however, to infer from the inscription, that the date referred to was August 1st, rather than the day before. tThe Rev. George Ogilvie, son of John Ogilvie, D. D., of Trinity church, N. Y., was born in 1758, and graduated at Kings College in 1774. He was oi'dained deacon by Bishop Provost and priest in 1790, (the year of his coming to Norwalk,) by Bishop Seabury. His first wife to whom he was married Sept. 4, 1777, was Amelia Willett, of West Farms, Westchester County, N. Y. Two children were born to them, Elizabeth (Betsey), July 20, 1778, and Amelia, Dec. 13, 1779. Mrs. Amelia Ogilvie died March 18, 1780, and Mr. Ogilvie on July 28, 1782, married, for a second wife, Ann McWhorter, of Newark, N. J. A son (John), was born to them June 22, 1783, but died the next day, and the next 11 parish. It was during this rectorship that the new church of 1786 was pewed and finished. John Cannon, Thomas Belden and Gould Hoyt supervised the work, and with inside and outside completed the structure was comely and for the era imposing. Its vaulted ceiling, with dependant chandeliers, its chaste pulpit, and cushioned desk, and neat communion table with circular rail, are still remembered; while its projecting chancel, and west end tower, and tasteful belfry and graceful spire, and, later, line of Lombardy poplars all rising from a carpet of living green, formed, as viewed from the common in front, a pleasing picture, and no wonder that it was the wish of so many of the fathers that at death they might be laid beside it. Mr. Ogilvie’s rectorship lacked but a few days of six years’ duration. His resignation took effect Oct. 23, 1796, and the parish by unanimous vote called the Rev. Dr. Wil- liam Smith, of Trinity Church, Newport, R. I. Dr. Smith was not an incapable but a competent man. He was a thinker, and his writings attest that he thought to a purpose. He was the preacher at the consecration of Bishop Jarvis, and his sermon was hearty and weighty and created a commotion and was assailed, but the preacher’s potent reply proved that he understood his subject and could not be driven from his position, at least by fine sophistry or flash-light rhetoric. An incident interesting to the children of this parish, was his preparation, while here, of the cliild was a daughter, born January 6, 1786, who died on the second day after her birth. Mr. Ogilvie’s blood was that, it is claimed, of the Ogilvies of the Earldoms of Finlater and Seafield. An oil painting by Copley, (father of Lord Lyndhurst), of Mr. Ogilvie’s father, (Dr. John), is now in the possession of Trinity Parish, N. Y. He died about six months after leaving Norwalk, (April 3, 1797), and is buried in Rye, Westchester County, N. Y. His father lies in the Ogilvie vault, in Trinity Church yard, the vaults in which yard were ordered to be closed some time before the son’s death. Rev. George Ogilvie’s daughter, Elizabeth. (Betsey), married, Dec. 24, 1795. Thomas, son of Samuel Belden, (grandfather of Frederick Belden, Esq., of this town), and the nephew of Thomas Belden, the old church warden of the last century. Sam- uel Belden lived in Wilton, directly opposite St. Matthew’s Church, and he gave the land whereon that edifice stands. Thomas and Betsey Belden’s son George, (Hon. George O. Belden, United States congressman), was born March 28, 1797, and married, on July 19, 1821, Miss Minerva Anne Heacock. This estimable lady, daughter of Elisha and Ann Heacock, of Washington, Litch- field County, Connecticut, is gratefully remembered in Norwalk. Her hus- band died about a half century ago; she survived him, and was the tender care of her daughter, Mrs. Anne E. Webster, of Washington, D. C., until Sep- tember 9, 1874. Miss Anne Eliza Belden. daughter of Hon. George O. and Minerva A. Belden, married in St. Michael’s Church, Litchfield, June 27, 1842, Edwin Belden Webster, Esq., of northern Connecticut. Their two sons are Lieutenant George Ogilvie Webster, who after a term of eight years professor- ship of military science in one of this nation’s colleges, has just been re-ap- pointed to the adjutancy in tlie United States Army, and Edwin Belden Web- ster, a Norwalk school boy, and now assistant paymaster in the United States Navy, and who has recently returned from the Government Alaska Expedi- tion of 1883. The Hev. George Ogilvie’s second daughter, Amelia, married John Com- stock, Esq., of New Canaan, the father of Mr. Comstock, so long of the Commercial House of Howland, Aspinwall & Co., of New York. 12 £ office of institution, which office was compiled in the old parson- age study, probably.* The propositions which Dr. Smith made to his wardens indicate that he looked upon the pastoral tie as did one,f who, thirty years later, was called to this field, but declin- ed it, assigning that the vows of institution are sacred, and he could not expect the blessing of Heaven upon the breach of them by relinquishing the charge he already had. His rectorship terminating in the fall of 180!>, Dr. Smith removed to the City of New York and subsequently filled responsible positions in the church. Toward the close of life he returned to Norwalk and was the author of a treatise entitled Smith’s Primitive Psalmody. He died April 8, 1821, leaving five children, the second of whom took Seabury as one of his names. Three grandchildren survive; Wil- liam Duff', of Norwalk, Edward J., of Wisconsin, and Henry, of Ridgefield. + A young man of twenty -two, the Rev. Henry Whitlock, was Dr. Smith’s successor. He entered upon his duties Nov 8, 1890, and while still in deacon’s orders, but he so won the esteem of the people that assurance of his induction to the rectorship, upon re- ceiving priest’s orders, was given him. Henry Whitlock was of a cultivated and refined mind, and his disposition seems to have been trained. His life was consecrated to duty. He was faithful with- in the parish, and there is record of his baptizing the living and burying the dead far outside of it. § He was father-in-law of Rev. Dr. William Lupton Johnson, of Jamaica, L. I., and was in charge of St. Paul’s for about eleven years, after which he be- came rector of Trinity Church, New Haven. Brief life was his portion. He had gone south in quest of health, and died, in his thirty-eighth year, at Fayetteville, North Carolina, on Christmas day, 1814.11 * Copies of the original compilation of the office of institution are still in existence. The efficient and courteous state librarian, Charles J. Hoadly, Esq., of Hartford, to whom the author of this document is under obligations, has a copy in his possession. . t Rev. William Crosswell. f Dr. Smith taught as principal in his own, and later in life, assistant in his son’s school in Norwalk. His wife died at her home in Norwalk, in 1820. He died in New York city, and is buried in Trinity Church yard. S He read the burial office, in 1805, on the occasion of the first interment (an ancestor of the present senior warden of St. Paul’s), in the burial ground on the ridge in New York state, eleven miles northwest of this parish, from which eminence Norwalk’s “white ascending’ ’spire is on a clear day distinctly to be seen I! Mr. Whitlock, whose wife was a sister of D. Starr Bartram, formerly of Norwalk, left several daughters : Mary Elizabeth, who married Rev. Dr. Wm. Lupton Johnson, assistant to Bishop Moore, of Richmond, Va., and rector of St. Michael’s, Trenton, N. J. ; for forty years, rector of Grace Church, Jamaica, L. I.; and Caroline, who married Isaac G. Seymour, a graduate of Yale College and West Point, and formerly editor of the New Orleans Bulle- tin, and who, having served with distinction in the Mexican and Indian wars. 13 In September, 1811, the Rev. Joseph Prentice was invited to officiate, but declined. At the close of the same month Dr. Bethel Judd* was asked to the headship of the parish. Dr. Judd seems