I 'J|]CO 'UO|>pClS I 
 
r t-i i 
 
 IHe First 
 
 Ecclesiastical Society 
 in Hartford 
 
 1670-1903 
 
THE 
 
 Warfield Library 
 
 First Ecclesiastical Society 
 
 IN HARTFORD 
 
 1670-1903 
 
 
 <!§? 
 
 AN ADDRESS BY 
 
 WlLLISTON %ALKER 
 
 ON THE OCCASION OF 
 THE TRANSFER OF ITS 
 PROPERTY TO THE . . . 
 
 First Church of Christ in Hartford 
 
 March 19, 1903 
 
 yublialiri) liij the (Eljurrli 
 
THE CASE, LOCKWOOD & BRAINARO CO.. 
 PRINTERS. 
 
^^^"^^^^^^^ 
 
 HE occasion on which we are met is certainly one 
 of significance. The dissolution of a venerable cor- 
 poration that has served its Church and Us commu- 
 nity probably for two hundred and thirty-three years, is an 
 episode of no ordinary moment. It marks the termination of 
 a relationship begun in the early days of this commonwealth 
 and creditably continued through successive generations to the 
 present hour. If the Ecclesiastical Society — the transfer of 
 whose property and rights to the First Church of Hartford 
 we commemorate to-night — has ceased to be the necessity 
 that it once appeared for the maintenance of the temporal in- 
 terests of the Church, and seems therefore no longer desirable, 
 we recognize, nevertheless, that it has served this Church long 
 and well, and is deserving of grateful remembrance on this 
 occasion. We remember, also, however, that the matter of 
 fundamental importance for which the First Church of Christ 
 stands in this Hartford community is the maintenance and 
 development of the Kingdom of God through the worship, 
 the sacraments, and the spiritual life of those who are asso- 
 ciated in or influenced by its fellowship. And hence any 
 organizations or devices by which the expenses of the Church 
 are met, and its secular business managed, have simply a 
 secondary and incidental importance in the accomplishment of 
 the work which the Church aims to do. The Church is the 
 permanent and vitally essential institution; the Society is but 
 a means by which, during part of its history, the Church has 
 sought to accomplish one branch of its work. 
 
The ecclesiastical society is characteristically a New England 
 device. A great variety of methods have been employed to 
 provide for the support of Christian institutions since the time 
 that the Apostles gathered together in the upper chamber at 
 Jerusalem, and those among the believers who had property 
 sold it for the benefit of their fellow disciples and the main- 
 tenance of the life of worship and service in common. Paul 
 counseled his converts to the new faith to give on the first day 
 of the week as the Lord had prospered them ; and though 
 the gifts for which he asks were primarily for the poor saints 
 at Jerusalem, to whom he wished to take his great collection 
 expressive of the indebtedness of the Gentile churches to them, 
 one cannot doubt that a similar voluntary method was em- 
 ployed to meet the expenses of the early churches. We have 
 evidence that this free system appealed strongly to the Christians 
 of the first and second centuries as part of the liberty of the 
 Gospel. As the Church grew, and especially after the Roman 
 Empire was converted to the support of Christianity as the 
 official religion, it became a great property holder, and the 
 Jewish system of tithes was regarded, from the fourth century 
 onward, with increasing approval, as a law binding upon all 
 Christian people. This two-fold system of support from prop- 
 erty and from tithes continued through the Middle Ages, and 
 was that in use in England at the time that the Puritan 
 founders of Hartford separated from the English Establishment. 
 But this method of providing for the support of the Christian 
 ministry and worship was one of the features of contemporary 
 religious life which the earliest Congregationalists of England 
 rejected. The "separatists" who organized the Pilgrim con- 
 gregation at Scrooby, lived in exile in Leyden, and founded 
 Plymouth, believed, like the Christians of the first and second 
 centuries, that the support of the Gospel should be by the 
 
 4 
 
voluntary gifts of its disciples. The Puritans who founded 
 the other Congregational colonies of New England, at first 
 had no such conviction ; and one of the early acts of the 
 Massachusetts Company in its endeavor to foster the spiritual 
 welfare of the colonists who were to cross the Atlantic was 
 to provide at public charge for the support of their ministers 
 and the erection of meeting houses in the new land. But 
 here, as in so many other matters of ecclesiastical organization 
 in early New England, Plymouth example triumphed, and for 
 a time all the Congregational colonies practiced the voluntary 
 method of meeting the expenses incident to the maintenance 
 of public worship. 
 
 Yet this voluntary system soon proved to have serious dis- 
 advantages. The expenses incident to the building of meeting 
 houses and to the maintenance of the numerous salaried officers, 
 - " pastor," " teacher " and " ruling elder," — which their read- 
 ing of the New Testament led them to deem necessary for 
 the proper organization of the Church, proved exceedingly 
 burdensome to communities the means of which at best were 
 extremely limited. Not all men were generous or gave in 
 proportion to their abilities. Furthermore, since Massachusetts, 
 by a law of March 4, 1635, had required attendance at Church 
 under penalty of a fine, it seemed but just to the colonists of 
 that day " that not only members of churches but all that are 
 taught in the Word, are to contribute unto him that teacheth." 
 So serious was the question which the inadequacy of the volun- 
 tary methed forced upon the consideration of the Massachusetts 
 authorities, that Governor Winthrop proposed its discussion by 
 the Synod which met at Cambridge in August, 1637. But 
 the ministers who there gathered refused to debate it lest they 
 should be thought self-seeking. In November following, how- 
 ever, the Massachusetts Legislature sent a circular letter to the 
 
 5 
 
several churches asking their advice as to the desirability of 
 adopting some other method of ministerial maintenance ; and 
 the result was the passage of a law in September, 1638, by 
 which " Evry inhabitant in any towne .... who shall not 
 volentarily contribute, proportionably to his ability, wth other 
 freemen of the same towne, to all comon charges, as well for 
 vpholding the ordinances in the churches as otherwise, shalbee 
 compelled thereto by assessment & distres to bee levied by the 
 cunstable." This law, though preserving the principle of vol- 
 untaryism in appearance at least, really changed the support 
 of the ministry and the payment of Church expenses from 
 a charge met by voluntary gifts to one collectible by taxation. 
 Public sentiment prevented its enforcement in a few places, 
 notably in Boston, where the voluntary system continued until 
 it was supplanted, in the eighteenth century, by the rental of 
 pews. In Boston, taxation for ministerial support never obtained 
 a foothold ; but in other Massachusetts towns it became the 
 established system. The same difficulties which were met in 
 Massachusetts soon led the other colonies to abandon the volun- 
 tary system. The Commissioners of the United Colonies, in 
 September, 1644, evidently moved by Massachusetts example, 
 recommended the several associated governments to pass laws 
 "that eurie man voluntaryly set downe what he is willing to alowe 
 to that end & vse [ministerial support], and if any man refuse to 
 pay a meet p'porcon, that then hee be rated by authority in 
 some lust & equall way, and if after this any man withhould or 
 delay due paymt the ciuill power to be exercised as in other lust 
 debts." Thus invited, Connecticut enacted this recommenda- 
 tion into a statute on October 25, 1 644. New Haven had a 
 like requirement by 1 656, and probably several years earlier ; 
 and even Plymouth, whose example had established the volun- 
 
 6 
 
tary system in New England, was induced to pass a similar, 
 though somewhat milder, statute, in June, 1655. 
 
 These laws were modified and strengthened from time to 
 time; and, in November, 1647, the Massachusetts Legislature 
 ordered that when parsonages should be built by vote of the 
 inhabitants in any town, the cost should be duly levied upon the 
 taxpayers. With the course of time, the appearance of volun- 
 taryism which had at first been preserved was abandoned ; and 
 the Connecticut Statute of May, 1697, frankly provided that 
 church expenses : — 
 
 " shall be levied and assessed on the severall inhabitants in each town 
 or plantation according to their respective estates as from time to time they 
 shall be in the genii list or lists of the persons and estates of the inhabitants 
 of each town or plantation, and in such species, viz. : wheat, indian com, 
 rie and pork, and m such proportion and prizes of ye species as shall from 
 year to year be settled by the Genii Court for the payment of the ministers 
 rates, or in money ; which said sumes or payments shall be collected by 
 such person or persons as the respective townes shall from year to year 
 
 choose and appoint for that end And if any person or persons 
 
 so assessed being demanded the said payments levied on them shall 
 refuse or neglect to pay in the same .... the Assistt or Comissioner 
 shall issue forth his warrant to the constable or constables of the town or to 
 the collectors where such neglect of payments shall be, to distrein the same 
 paiment or paiments out of the estate or estates of the person or persons so 
 refusing or neglecting to pay." 
 
 The effect of this statute was to make the support of the 
 Gospel a town charge ; and the money to be collected was 
 appointed by town vote and raised by taxation like any other 
 common expense. It is easy to see that such a situation was a 
 relatively simple one when a single congregation existed within 
 the boundaries of a town. The same body of legal voters 
 which deliberated upon and appropriated taxes to meet the 
 other expenses of the community could take counsel concerning 
 
 7 
 
the maintenance of the church ; and we find a number of 
 instances of such votes in the Hartford Town Records when as 
 yet only one church existed in this Hartford community. Thus, 
 in March, 1 640, the town ordered an addition of five pounds to 
 the salary of Rev. Samuel Stone, the "teacher" of this Hartford 
 Church. Ordinarily, however, the town seems to have re- 
 garded ministers' salaries as existing contracts to be met year 
 by year, as illustrated in this vote, of December 7, 1661: — 
 
 " Ye towne granted ye same stipend or allowance to Mr. Stone and 
 Mr. Whiteinge as ye last yere & orded ye rate makers apoynted to make 
 rates as formerly." 
 
 The death of Mr. Stone, in July, 1 663, brought up, of 
 course, the question of what compensation was to be paid for 
 his services during the fraction of the year preceding his decease ; 
 and we find the Hartford town meeting of January 26, 1664, 
 voting to his widow " sixty pownds " and to his colleague " Mr. 
 Whitting eighty pownds." The settlement of Rev. Joseph 
 Haynes, in 1 664, as colleague with Rev. John Whiting in the 
 pastorate of this Church is reflected that year in the town 
 records by a vote of seventy pounds " for his suruise in the 
 ministry." 
 
 From time to time onward, until 1 670, frequent votes deter- 
 mining the salaries of the colleague pastorates for the year 
 appear in the Hartford Town Records. In that year they 
 cease abruptly. The reason was undoubtedly the formation of 
 two ecclesiastical Societies in Hartford because of the division 
 of the mother church of the town, completed by the formation 
 of the Second Church, on February 22, 1670, as we should 
 now reckon the date. Though the extant records of our First 
 Ecclesiastical Society begin in 1683, there seems to be no 
 reason to doubt that its year of birth was that of the division 
 
 8 
 
of the Church (1670), and that it was the questions of taxation 
 raised by the formation of another church in Hartford that 
 brought it into existence. That which had been the concern 
 of the whole town when but one church existed in this com- 
 munity became the interest of only part of the inhabitants when 
 the religious forces were divided. And as a town may be 
 divided at the present day into school districts each taxing itself 
 for the support of public instruction, so in 1 670 the mainte- 
 nance of public worship became the concern of two societies 
 including, between them, all the inhabitants of the town, who 
 now discussed in their separate society meetings those ecclesi- 
 astical questions which before the division had been determined 
 by the whole body of legal voters assembled in town meeting. 
 The First Ecclesiastical Society was simply the legal voters 
 attached to the First Church met together to provide for its 
 temporal necessities. 
 
 Though no legislative authorization for the formation of this 
 Society has been preserved, the existence of societies in the 
 colony is clearly indicated in the Connecticut statutes contained 
 in the " Book of the General Laws " in 1 672-3. This enact- 
 ment ordered that 
 
 " where there is more than one Assembly in a Town they shall 
 severally meet to Consider and determine [the minister's salary] as afore- 
 said, and all persons shall Contribute to one or both of those Societies 
 within their Township." 
 
 It appears that lands were divided for taxing purposes between 
 the two societies according to the elective affinity of their own- 
 ers. Such an assignment is contemplated in the Connecticut law 
 of October, 1 676, which provided : — 
 
 " that where there are more then one assemblies in a towne .... 
 the severall inhabitants shall pay towards the minister's mayntenance of one 
 or both theire societies as foloweth, viz. : if they shall choose to pay to 
 
 9 
 
one, they shall pay in full proportion with the rest of that societie ; if 
 not, they shall pay to both societies ; the one halfe of every such persons 
 estate shall be rated with the people of one society, and the other halfe of 
 theire estates with those of the other societie, in full proportion with theire 
 neighboures of each societie." 
 
 This system of assignment by the owner's choice was soon 
 modified in a way that is illustrated by the only instance con- 
 tained in the first volume of " Hartford Town Votes " in which 
 the town as a whole passed laws upon ecclesiastical finance after 
 the dividing year 1670. When, in 1694, the inhabitants on 
 the east side of the river, in what is now East Hartford, had 
 secured the countenance of the Legislature for the establishment 
 of religious institutions of their own, the members of the two 
 Hartford societies got together in town meeting and passed a 
 grudging vote to the effect : — 
 
 " that all the Land on the East side [of the Connecticut] that Belongs 
 to any of the people of west side Shall pay to the ministy of the west side 
 and that all the Land on the west side shall pay to the minister of the 
 west side tho it Belongs to the people of the East side." 
 
 The tendency to make location rather than the choice of the 
 owner the determining factor in the incidence of taxation evi- 
 dently grew as the seventeenth century drew to a close ; and in 
 October, 1699, the Legislature ordered: — 
 
 " that where this Court hath determined the bounds and limits of any 
 society in any town or plantation in this Colonie where there are more than 
 one societye, that in every such case all persons living within those bounds 
 
 and limits and their estates lying within the same shall be rateable 
 
 according to law for the support and maintainance of the ministrye of that 
 societye, any lawe, usage or custome to the contrary in any wise notwith- 
 standing." 
 
 But it would not appear that in Hartford a hard and fast 
 geographical line was ever drawn between the First and Second 
 Societies by legal authority. 
 
 10 
 
By the time our Ecclesiastical Society was being formed, a 
 further question was coming into prominence in New England, 
 which naturally arose out of the share of the legal voters of a 
 society or town in the payment of church expenses and the 
 assessment of taxes by which those expenses were met. If these 
 men were responsible for the support of the minister whether 
 they were members of the Church or not, ought they not to 
 have some share in the choice of the minister that they were 
 bound to support ? Was it right that there should be " taxation 
 without representation " ? — to quote the New England principle 
 which the Revolution was to put into the fore-front of political 
 discussion. This question was of little importance in early 
 Massachusetts since there, from 1 63 1 to 1 664, all legal voters 
 were Church members; nor was it of concern in early New 
 Haven, for, as in Massachusetts, the franchise was there restricted 
 to church members until 1665. In Connecticut Colony no such 
 limitation ever had place. And we find the inhabitants of 
 Connecticut towns, whether Church members or not, possessed 
 of a voice in the choice of their ministers at a comparatively 
 early period. In October, 1666, the Connecticut Legislature 
 proposed for the consideration of a " Synod," which was planned 
 for the following May, the query : — 
 
 " whether it doth not belong to ye body of a Towne collectively, 
 taken joyntly, to call him to be their minister whom the Church shal choose 
 to be their officer." 
 
 Though the failure of the " Synod " to meet prevented an 
 answer by the Connecticut churches to the Legislature's enquiry, 
 its own actions gave an interpretation within a year. On 
 October 1 0, 1 667, the Connecticut General Court ordered all 
 freemen and householders of the town of Windsor to meet and 
 to determine by vote whether they would have Rev. Nathaniel 
 
 II 
 
Chauncey as their minister or not. In this action no distinction 
 was made between those who were members of the Church and 
 those outside its covenant. 
 
 The right of those who assessed and paid taxes, thus to share 
 in the choice of the minister was one evidently demanded by the 
 spirit of the time, and though the Massachusetts Legislature, in 
 1668, forbade any but Church members in full communion 
 to share in the selection of their minister, the tide was too 
 strong to be resisted in that colony also, and the townspeople 
 exercised the right of choice irrespective of the question of their 
 Church membership, at Salem in 1672, and at Dedham in 1685. 
 Massachusetts, in 1 692-3, enacted a general statute ordering 
 that the choice of a minister should be by the Church, and that 
 that selection should then be ratified or rejected by the legal 
 voters, who should fix and raise the minister's salary. And, in 
 1 708, the Connecticut Legislature went so far as to provide : — 
 
 " that the major part of the inhabitants of any town, plantation, or societie, 
 qualified as the law directs to vote in all other town affairs, or are members 
 in full communion with the church in the said town or societie, that shall 
 be present at a town or societie meeting legally warned, shall have power 
 by the major vote of them so met to call and settle a minister ; and the 
 minister so called and settled shall be the minister of such town or societie, 
 any law, usage, or custom to the contrary notwithstanding." 
 
 There is every reason to believe, therefore, that all legal 
 voters of our Society had a voice in the choice of their minister 
 from the first. Its early relations to the Church seem to have 
 been cordial and to have foreshadowed that harmony of co- 
 operation which has always characterized the connection of the 
 two bodies in Hartford. The vote of November 24, 1682, 
 fixing the salary of Rev. Timothy Woodbridge then just settled, 
 at one hundred pounds, is described in the Society's records as 
 passed at " a meeting of the First Church and congregation in 
 
 12 
 
Hartford," and the Society had had a share — just how extensive 
 it is hard to say — in the negotiations which had led to Mr. 
 Woodbridge's settlement. 
 
 Indeed the tendency of custom, as well as the practical effect 
 of the legislation which has been noted, was to give the Society 
 during the eighteenth century, in many parts of Connecticut, not 
 merely a share, but the leading part in the choice of the minister. 
 This was conspicuously the case in the eastern portion of the 
 colony; and it had its illustration as late as 1825, in so important 
 a church as the First Church of New Haven, where the choice 
 of Rev. Leonard Bacon as pastor was effected by the Society 
 and ratified by the Church. Absence of record in the case of 
 our Church makes it impossible definitely to affirm what the 
 eighteenth century practice here was; but, it looks as if the 
 Society here was the leader in the settlement of Rev. Daniel 
 Wadsworth in 1 732, of Rev. Edward Dorr in I 747-8, and of 
 Rev. Nathan Strong in I 774. When Rev. Joel Hawes was 
 chosen pastor of this Church in 1818 the Church acted first. 
 The Society concurred in the choice a week later. This order 
 of procedure observed in Hawes's settlement has continued to 
 be the usage of the First Church and Society, and certainly 
 since the beginning of the nineteenth century has been thought 
 to be far more Congregational than to have the society take the 
 initiative. It corresponds not merely with the practice of early 
 New England, but with the significance which the Church itself 
 should possess in the administration of affairs of such spiritual 
 importance as the choice of a pastor. Regarding such more 
 thoroughly business problems as the erection of a meeting-house 
 or of other buildings for public worship, their care, maintenance 
 and development, the Society has always led, since a Society has 
 been connected with this Church. 
 
 13 
 
In the State-Church system under which societies came into 
 being, all taxpayers were, as we have seen, bound to contribute 
 to the expenses of the Gospel, and unless specially exempt were 
 deemed members of the Congregational society within the 
 boundaries of which they resided. Exemption from payment 
 to the support of the Congregational ministry was thus an excep- 
 tion, and an exception not acquired without effort. The Episco- 
 palians of Connecticut gained such exemption in 1 727, and two 
 years later it was extended to Quakers and Baptists ; but it 
 applied to representatives of these unestablished polities only 
 where actual congregations existed which those who sought 
 exemption could attend, and any who availed themselves of this 
 right were ultimately compelled to abjure allegiance to the 
 established Congregational order by lodging with the town clerk 
 a formal renunciation of connection with the Congregational 
 Society and of association with their new fellowship. They had 
 to pay at least as much in taxes for the support of the worship 
 which they preferred as would have been assessed upon them 
 for the maintenance of the Congregational establishment, lest their 
 renunciation of its support should be for pecuniary advantage 
 rather than by reason of religious conviction. 
 
 The difficulties of escape from payment for the support of 
 Congregational public worship and the consequent countenance 
 thus given to the churches of the Congregational order at the 
 expense ot other forms of faith was felt to be a great grievance ; 
 and, in the increasing spirit of independence from churchly con- 
 trol, it was felt equally to be a grievance by many at the begin- 
 ning of the nineteenth century to have to pay for the support 
 of ecclesiastical institutions at all. The party which desired to 
 do away with the ancient state of affairs grew rapidly during the 
 opening years of the nineteenth century and effected a complete 
 revolution, in 1818, when a new Constitution for Connecticut 
 
 14 
 
was adopted, which still remains in force. By this Constitution 
 all support of religion within the boundaries of this State became 
 voluntary, and all religious organizations were placed on an 
 equality before the law. The society ceased to be a state 
 institution. It survived, but as a voluntary partnership or asso- 
 ciation. Yet the framers of our Constitution were true to the 
 reputation of the State of Connecticut as a " land of steady 
 habits," and they desired that the change which the Constitution 
 effected should be accomplished with as little violence as pos- 
 sible. Hence the Constitution provided that all persons should 
 remain members of the society to which they then belonged, 
 unless they formally gave notice to its clerk of their withdrawal 
 from its fellowship. Thus the old State-supported society passed 
 quietly and without friction over into the voluntary association 
 as a consequence of the adoption of the Connecticut Constitu- 
 tion of 1818. But though now a voluntary organization, a 
 Connecticut ecclesiastical society, under the Constitution, had, 
 and still has, full legal right to assess and collect a tax upon its 
 members by a majority vote of a duly warned meeting. The 
 property of all of its members is liable for its taxes and debts. 
 But a method of raising money, so similar to the taxation 
 imposed by public authority for State expenses, has proved itself 
 increasingly unpopular, and has been seldom, if ever, resorted 
 to of late years in Connecticut. It was enforced, however, in 
 our Society for some years after the adoption of the Connecticut 
 State Constitution, and it was not until 1847 that our Society 
 began meeting its expenses by assessment upon the pews. 
 
 In Massachusetts a similar controversy in the early years of 
 the nineteenth century precipitated a curious discussion involving 
 the rights of ecclesiastical societies, from which Connecticut was 
 fortunately exempt. The section of the Massachusetts Constitu- 
 tion of 1 780, known as the " Bill of Rights," had been adopted 
 
 15 
 
nearly a generation before the Unitarian controversy began, and, 
 of course, without any thought of that discussion in the minds of 
 its framers. It had provided that " the several towns, parishes, 
 precincts, and other bodies politic, or religious societies," should 
 " have the exclusive right of electing their public teachers." 
 These expressions were certainly indefinite, and there seems to 
 be reason to believe that the words "religious societies" and 
 "public teachers" were simply rather elaborate eighteenth cen- 
 tury circumlocutions to avoid the commoner and simpler expres- 
 sions, " churches " and " ministers." However this may have 
 been, the interpretation given to this Constitution by the cele- 
 brated Dedham case, in i 820, constituted one of the reckoning 
 points of the history of ecclesiastical societies. That case arose 
 in this way. In 1818, Rev. Alvan Lamson, a minister of 
 Unitarian sympathies, was called to the pastorate at Dedham 
 by the votes of a minority of the church members and of a 
 decided majority of the members of the parish. A majority of 
 the church opposed his settlement. The church was evidently 
 divided, and the legal question then arose which faction — the 
 majority or minority — was the church of Dedham, and as such, 
 entitled to the use of the property, the title of which stood in 
 the name of the ecclesiastical society. After a trial, in 1820, 
 notable for the conspicuity of the counsel who argued the case, 
 the legal questions being presented by Daniel Webster and 
 Theron Metcalf before the full court, presided over by Chief 
 Justice Isaac Parker, the Supreme Court of Massachusetts de- 
 cided that a church had no legal existence save in connection 
 with an ecclesiastical society ; and that, should a dispute arise 
 within a church, that faction, however large, was the church, 
 and entitled to the use of the property of the society which a 
 majority of the society should recognize. This left to the eccle- 
 siastical society the determination, very largely, of the religious 
 
 16 
 
complexion of the congregation the temporal interests of which 
 it was organized to serve. No such serious dispute occurred in 
 Connecticut. But there has been not a little recent discussion 
 of the necessity or desirability of ecclesiastical societies, under 
 the altered conditions of the present, so unlike those which 
 obtained when they were originally called into being. Our 
 National Council debated the matter in 1877, and in 1880; 
 and legislative action has now made the formation of a church 
 without a society possible in all the New England States. 
 
 Our First Ecclesiastical Society has had relatively an unevent- 
 ful history. It is to its credit that the interest which it excites 
 is antiquarian rather than historical. It has been a harmonious 
 body. It has never had a quarrel with the Church which it 
 has so long served. In its own internal relations it has mani- 
 fested good feeling and unity. The only considerable difference 
 of opinion which has marked its history was when it built the 
 second meeting-house which this Church has occupied, after 
 the old structure on the Post Office Square had served its use- 
 fulness. Discussions begun in 1 727 were continued until the 
 new edifice was erected in I 739, nearly on the site where our 
 present house of worship stands. These disputes as to where 
 the structure should be built, on which side of a street it should be 
 placed, and of the relative desirability of various sites suggested, 
 form a curious episode, as well as the only important contro- 
 versy, in the history of our Society. But it is evident that the 
 majority choose well, for the First Ecclesiastical Society has 
 been satisfied with the site selected for more than one hundred 
 and sixty years past. When with the growth of Hartford and 
 the decay of the wooden meeting-house of 1 739, larger quarters 
 were necessary, the Society determined, in 1 805, this time 
 peacefully and harmoniously, to build once more on the site, the 
 selection of which had once involved so much dispute, and to 
 
 17 
 
this decision was due the completion of the present noble edifice, 
 in 1 807. It was not quite in its present appearance, however, 
 that this structure in which we are assembled met the eyes of 
 those who attended its dedication. It had not the recess behind 
 the pulpit, nor the arched roof over our heads, nor the organ. 
 No means of heating relieved the cold of winter until the Society 
 voted to permit the introduction of stoves in 1815. No carpets 
 deadened the sound of foot-falls in its aisles until 1839. Square 
 pews were erected about its sides ; and the galleries, which still 
 seem so lofty, were five feet higher than they are at present; 
 while the pulpit was at a height sufficiently greater than its 
 present altitude to command not merely the congregation below 
 but the loftier galleries as well. The year 1835 saw the lower- 
 ing of the galleries, and extensive alterations, in 1 852, brought 
 the whole interior of the house of worship substantially into its 
 present form, except for the windows and tablets which com- 
 memorate so many who have served this church well and whose 
 memories are held in deserved honor. 
 
 Our Society has not been unresponsive to the increasing needs 
 of church life as newer forms of religious activity have de- 
 veloped. A meeting-house was sufficient for public worship 
 until the beginning of the nineteenth century. No evening 
 prayer-meeting was held in Hartford under the auspices of the 
 Church as a whole until 1 798, and no Sunday-School gathered 
 the children under its instruction until 1818. But, with the 
 demand which these new agencies for Christian life and nurture 
 made, the Society supplied the need. The year 1813 saw the 
 foundations of a " Conference Building " laid on a lot near 
 Temple Street ; and its full use for the mid-week lecture and 
 other meetings probably began early in 1814. Within its walls, 
 one of the four Sunday-Schools organized for the city at the 
 introduction of the Sunday-School into Hartford, met in 1818. 
 
 18 
 
But this building proved inadequate for the growing needs of 
 the congregation, and in 1 83 1 -32 the present Lecture-Room 
 was obtained. To it the parlors in which so many of our even- 
 ing meetings are held were added in 1875. Nor has it been in 
 the study of the wants of the congregation alone that the Society 
 has always shown a generous interest. The improvement of 
 its property and its surroundings have been increasingly its con- 
 cern, as illustrated conspicuously of recent years in the reno- 
 vation of Gold Street. 
 
 Our Ecclesiastical Society has had a conspicuous part in the 
 development of the musical services of the Church. Its interest 
 in church music began early. New England thought at the time 
 of its organization opposed the use in public worship of any but 
 versified portions of Holy Writ. The uninspired hymn was 
 rejected, and the absence of books in which the tunes were 
 printed led to singing by memory, or " rote " as it was called, 
 with the result that such local modifications were made in music 
 that the same tune was often scarcely recognizable as used in 
 adjacent parishes. The best that Cotton Mather could say of the 
 singing of New England in his day was that it was ' ' not worse 
 than what is [heard] in many other parts of the World." But 
 the early eighteenth century saw an effort for reform, and this 
 region of Connecticut was agitated (1 727-1 732) over singing by 
 " rote " or by " rule." To some it seemed as if the introduction 
 of the tune-book would be but the first step in a process the 
 logical completion of which would be the introduction of the 
 Prayer-Book and the imposition of the Liturgy which the found- 
 ers of New England thought themselves to have escaped by 
 crossing the Atlantic; but our Society had no such fears, though 
 it moved with its customary caution. On June 20, 1 733, it 
 voted that, after three months' practice by such members of the 
 congregation as inclined to sing by "rule," the new method 
 
 19 
 
should be tried until the annual meeting of December, and then 
 a further vote should be taken on the propriety of its continu- 
 ance. The innovation proved its permanent value. So, too, the 
 uninspired hymn, which had conquered its place in the esteem 
 of our churches by reason of the poetic genius with which Isaac 
 Watts expressed the aspirations, hopes and praises of Christian 
 people, found its place in our public worship through the vote of 
 the Ecclesiastical Society. In I 756, it expressed its judgment 
 " that Dr. Watts' Psalms may be sung in the Congregation at 
 the time of Divine Worship at least half ye time." Nearly 
 three-quarters of a century later, the Society countenanced 
 another musical innovation, admitting the organ which early 
 New England usage had rejected. In 1 822, a small instrument 
 was installed by voluntary subscription; but this organ proved 
 inadequate and was replaced, in 1833, by one purchased by 
 the Society by " a tax on the polls and ratable estates of the 
 inhabitants of the Society " ; and it, in turn, gave way, by gift, 
 to the present organ, in 1 883, after half a century of useful 
 service. 
 
 The Society had its burden of perplexities in all the changes 
 of value characteristic of the fluctuating paper money of the 
 eighteenth century. Rev. Timothy Woodbridge had been 
 settled, in 1 684, at a salary of one hundred pounds ; but by 
 1731 it took one hundred and fifty pounds in paper money to 
 equal the amount. Rev. Daniel Wadsworth received payment, 
 in 1 732, in one hundred thirty pounds of bills, as they then 
 stood ; but, by 1 747, it took four hundred pounds in paper 
 currency to discharge the indebtedness. Rev. Edward Dorr 
 was settled in 1 748 at seventy pounds of silver and his fire- 
 wood ; but the account book which he kept, and which has 
 come down to us, shows that he was paid largely " in kind," 
 and for the most part directly by the members of the Society, 
 
 20 
 
with many of whom he kept separate accounts. Nor has the 
 Society been without its fair share of worldy shrewdness, and, 
 at times, almost of business unscrupulousness. In 1 682, John 
 Holloway gave lands, now on North Main Street, with the 
 express provision that they should belong to the Church forever. 
 They do so in a sense ; but I am sorry to say that the Society 
 rented these lands in May, 1 774, during the business stringency 
 brought about by the political and commercial difficulties just 
 preceding the Revolutionary War, for the lump sum of one 
 hundred and forty-one pounds and fifteen shillings and "one 
 wheat corn on the first Monday of January" for nine hundred 
 years. Those of our successors in the First Church who are here, 
 and we may trust that many will be here, in 2674, may re-enter 
 into possession of the land which the Society thus practically 
 alienated. Nor was this the only instance in which the Society 
 thus made void the real intent of its benefactors. A parcel of 
 three acres of pine lands, given by the same John Holloway, 
 was similarly rented, in 1 759, for a single payment of fifteen 
 pounds, and a silver penny a year, until 2758. I have not 
 heard that our Treasurer has collected the rent in recent years. 
 But, taken as a whole, the record of the Society, business- 
 wise and in all other respects, is a very honorable one. Of 
 how much faithful, unpaid service it has been the recipient. 
 To mention a few only of the honored dead of recent years 
 whose names occur to all our memories, what pictures of 
 fidelity, of devotion to its interests, of affection for all that 
 made for its welfare, the names of Calvin Day, of Charles 
 Seymour, of John C. Parsons, of Robert Day and of Rowland 
 Swift, bring up to recollection. They are but some of the 
 later members in a long line of honorable service reaching 
 back more than two hundred and thirty years. It has been 
 a notable succession of those who have labored for the welfare 
 
 21 
 
of the Church, the material interests of which have been 
 committed to the charge of this Society. Now that the First 
 Ecclesiastical Society passes away, we remember that it existed 
 only for the Church, that it was a device growing out of the 
 colonial conditions which have ceased to be. It is no longer 
 necessary for the welfare of this First Church of Christ in 
 Hartford. It is probably well that the Church itself, through 
 an appropriate committee, should take charge more directly 
 and with less elaborate machinery, of its business affairs. But 
 we may well think kindly and gratefully of the Society which 
 is now to be dissolved. It has served this Church faithfully, 
 and its memory is one of usefulness and honor. 
 
 22