Norwalk After Two Hundred & Fifty Years

It fell to Dr. Hall to set off from the parent pre- cinct the Second Congregational Church, the successful planting of which Old Well daughter was due to its founders' worth. It was evidently a belief in this that influenced, especially the sister of Mrs. Moses Gregory, to surrender a portion of the prized Hoyt home seat for a site for the new society's church. Intermixed with this society's roll call of sixty-five organization members, were various view holders, it is possible, but when James Knox, in neat syllables, and with fascinat- ing mode, and after him John B. Shaw, Francis C. Woodworth, Z. K. Hawley and John Austin addressed a membership, among whom were several of Norwalk's central characters, they spake to a goodly and Godly unity, a fact which at the church's start, so gratified the mother pastor that he — this was told over his coffin in Auburn — was moved to relinquish what his own people had provided for his comfort, in order that his former South Norwalk children might thereby be convenienced. It is renown enough for Old Well that one of its levels was the fireside of five sisters, one of whom wedded a medical celebrity, another a Washington congressman, another a local reputation inhabitant, and another still the grandfather of William Tecumseh Sherman, and that on one of its primitive meadow paths was bred the young man who fired, when Garth came, one of the shots poetry declared to have been heard round the world, and that near one of its little ontioras was brought up another youth, who on his sixteenth birth- day, June 20, 1815, knelt as soon as he left his bed, and gave himself forever to God, the same Old Well boy becoming, afterward, the founder of the American Home Missionry Society, the historian of the state of New Hampshire, and the preacher in this pulpit, in July, 185 1, of the remarkable sermon on the occasion of the bi-centennial of Norwalk. Cherished, in Norwalk and South Norwalk, be the memory — their inheritance — of Nathaniel S. Bouton, whose old testament blessing to the concourse within these walls of fifty years ago was the very benediction he breathed over his family the last Sabbath night of his earthly life. The Congregational and all other churches of promiseful South Norwalk have examples of high vir- tue to henceforth incite them. Deacon John Bouton was a faithful forever man ; no one doubted Daniel K. 36a Nash's sincerity ; William H. Benedict's spirit was his charm ; Stephen G. Ferris' sainthood was pure. Dr. Hall's neighbors at St. Paul's were Jackson Kempner and William Cooper Mead, two of the rarest members on the clergy list of the American Episcopal Church. The first of these rectors was called from Nor- walk to the first bishopric of the great Northwest, and the second was for many sessions secretary of the House of Bishops, and "Father," so denominated, of the Lower House of the general convention of that church, in the United States. He saw the now enlarged Trinity Church, South Norwalk, leave the parental roof and since his day Grace parish has been planted. He lived to old age and died in harness, one of the enjoyments of his last days having been his acquaintance with the Rev. Samuel B. S. Bissell, his neighbor and warm friend, and Norwalk's peerless son. It also gave him true pleasure to receive, some little time before his de- cease, a cordial, candid message from his eighteen years fellow resident, Dr. Edwin Hall, of Western New York. Drs. Kempner and Mead were Bible and Prayer Book churchmen, and their teaching was that of a simple Gospel. As to the latter's teaching mode and matter, it has never, perhaps, been better summed up than in the language of one of Wilton's irreproachable sons, and a beloved physician of Norwalk and officer of this church, Dr. Ira Gregory, who was wont to repeat "Dr. Mead was one of the most evangelical preachers I ever listened to." Since his day his old care has had several rectors. The venerable mother has a history, and may she, crowned with age and covered with glory, go on and ever shine forth in the splendor which haloed her story in the years of olden times. William Bouton Weed, who took up Edwin Hall's laid-down work, was of masterly parts and of wonderful mental resources. His signal ability securely held his congregation, which it is the plain truth to say, he fed on elegant competencies. From his day to this day, this church has continued to be presided over by men of weight, including the names so familiar to and re- gardfully esteemed by all, of Anderson, Dunham, Ham- ilton, Childs, Noble and Egbert. To treat of its long line of laity will fall to the an- alist, next year, of this, then quarter-thousand years old society. His work will be a recompenseful one, and we can hardly repress the conviction that the occasion would be a suitable one on which to inaugurate meas- 36b nres looking to the restoration of the believed to be resting place, in our old cemetery, of Thomas Hanford, who has had several Norwalk born ministerial succes- sors, to one of whom, in whose veins the most honored blood of the plantation flows, it most appropriately and happily falls to pronounce, on Wednesday next, the oration of this celebration. The summer of 1837 had readied its last day, when the Baptist Society of Norwalk came into existence. Among its vigorous first members the names of Arnold, of Norwalk, and Moulton, of Westport, will ever stand prominently out. It was not, at the start, a largfe, but it was an earnest body, and its growth has been due to a candid presentation of its distinctive dogma and prin- ciples. For the early two or three years of its history its services were generally held in the present town house, and there was a somewhat transient supply of ministerial service. In 1840 the present church on The Green was dedicated, and the pastorate of the Rev. James Woolsey entered upon. Mr. Woolsey was an honor to his profession. Finely equipped intellectually, of deep spiritual nature and of sincerity itself eloquence, he was esteemed wherever known, and highly beloved by his own people. Sore affliction visited him during the earlier portion of his Norwalk life, but himself and more than admirable partner bore their bereavement pressure, and emerging from the trial, here accom- plished a good work. It is not difficult to trace the origin, in this town, •of the Roman Catholic Church, as it is one of our latest born ecclesiastical organizations. It was the faith of those hardy very few, who, within existing memories, could have been seen on Sunday morning walking over Jarvis Hill, and there, quietly removing the shoes from their feet, trudged zealously on as far east as the old Fairfield and Bridgeport division line, where, before entering the house of God, they would replace their shoes, and dust their travel-soiled wardrobe, so that no disrespect should be done the sacred place from whence, after their morning sacrifice and the blessing of Mother Church,they would turn their faces toward their four- teen miles westward home ; it was, we say, the zeal of such as these which ended in the establishment, in this community, of that communion. The first mass was established sixty-eight years ago, and anon public wor- ship was offered in a hall on Water street, and in the town house. After this an edifice was reared in 185 1, in 36c Chapel street, which answered until the erection of the loftier granite structure, on West avenue. St. Mary's has been under the care of some fifteen pastors, includ- ing the scholarly Rev. Dr. John Mulligan, and also of one of fine instincts and refined ways,, and who, like Edwin Hall, seemed to love our wave-kissed beach, along which his quiet figure of saintly mien would be seen in apparent meditation and contemplation, and of Rev. Peter A. Smith, who built, in 1869, his memorial, the present temple, and whose indefatigability at that time is well recalled, and of the great-soulcd Father Slocum, the appreciation of whose fidelity on the part of his own people, and of Ids exceptional spirit by those outside his flock was ever, until his bishop summoned him to a higher position, in the ascending scale. St.. Mary's lias enjoyed the ministrations of a devoted clergy, and its laity has been a generous body. It has provided for itself a stately and beautiful habitation, and seen built a commodious "tabernacle for its So. Norwalk daughter. It has also enjoyed the honor of filling with one of its own children, the Episcopal throne of the Diocese of Hartford. Unitarianism has never had a footing here, and Universalism only a tentative one. There are those among us, probably, whose views incline in these di- rections, but their number is comparatively small. We have German and Swedish congregations ; also a so- called Latter Day Saints organization. Our Hebrew population has a burial plot, but Mormonism, albeit Brigham Young and Elder Snow. and a companion of the two spent about a week in the place in endeavors to establish their belief, has never here thriven. It is hoped that all our ecclesiastical families have gathered data in connection with this month's obser- vances, and it is expected that the same will be properly cared for. Medicine, the bar, the school and academy, art, manufacture, commerce, agriculture, banking and gen- eral business, all these have had representatives, a num- ber of whom have been distinguished, and all merit recognition, at the proper time, at this celebration, a celebration at which it would be unnatural could we forget our only older sister, the favored and beautiful town of Stamford, on our West. It took some little time for the exact definement of the geographical boun- dary lines between us, but since that date, side by side, we have gone on, God in His Providence having richly 30d blessed this, by a few years older daughter than our- selves, of the commonwealth, and having, we devout- ly pray, still greater benediction, if it be possible, in re- serve for her.