able roads, often along trails merely, through unbroken forests for many, many miles; and over rivers, and across lakes, solitary and alone; exposed to all the inclemencies of autumnal weather; in weariness and fasting; often compelled to put up with the coarsest fare and the most unsatisfactory accommodations, and not unfrequently exposed to imminent danger;-let any reader consider how this good man thus traversed the wilderness and solitary way, a distance of more than thirteen hundred miles; occupying more than three months; during which time he preached as many times as there were days in his mission, besides all the other work done;-let the reader consider these items in the missionary's account, and he will get a pretty vivid conception of the laborious, dangerous, but eminently useful work of the early home missionaries of New England. For this mission was only a fair sample of them all. And let it not be forgotten that these early missionaries were nearly all pastors of churches, which they left for a season to preach the gospel to those who were utterly destitute, receiving a pecuniary consideration of just four dollars and fifty cents or five dollars a week while engaged in actual work.

In reviewing the work done by their missionaries in 1793, the Committee of the Association say: "By the charitable contributions made the last year, and the measures adopted by the General Association, the gospel has been preached

CHAP. I.]

CHURCH AT CANANDAIGUA.

23

through the vast tract of country from the northwestern parts of New Hampshire as far west as Genesee river, and down as far southwesterly as the Great Bend, in the State of Pennsylvania. . . . Most of the new settlements, westward of the Hudson, as far as Genesee river, and south of the Mohawk river, as far as the State of Pennsylvania, have repeatedly heard the Word preached; and abundant thanksgivings have been given to the name of the Lord. . . . The wilderness has indeed been made to rejoice, and the solitary place to be glad."

The first church organization in Western New York was, probably, at Canandaigua, somewhere about 1790. It seems, however, to have been but a temporary arrangement, to give the scattered. Christians in the Genesee country an opportunity to enjoy the Lord's Supper and the baptism of their children- the church being formed, probably, under the impression that without such an organization these Christian ordinances could not be properly observed. The church was made up of persons from all the country around who were members of churches. And after the organization had served a temporary purpose, it was probably suffered to die out, the members connecting themselves with other Congregational

*Narrative of the Missions to the New Settlements, by the General Association of the State of Connecticut, 1794.

churches, which were soon organized in different parts of that country. The agent in this church organization was the Rev. John Smith, then pastor of the Congregational church in Dighton, Mass., who chanced to be in the Genesee country at that time, looking after some land of which he had become possessed. After a while Mr. Smith returned to Massachusetts, and we hear nothing more of this church organization at Canandaigua until 1799, when it was either resuscitated or reappeared as a new Congregational church. Mr. Smith revisited this neighborhood in 1802, and resided here for several years, showing his interest in the town by giving a thousand acres of land to endow a seminary of learning in Canandaigua.*

In 1791 a Congregational church was organized at Clinton, and another at Paris, and still another at Westmoreland, all in Oneida county, from eighty to a hundred miles east of Canandaigua. These churches seem to have been organized by the advice and direction of the Rev. Jonathan Edwards, then of New Haven, Conn., afterwards President of Union College. The church at Clinton prospered greatly, and in 1802 was regarded as "the most harmonious, regular, and pious of any in the northern part of the State of New York." It numbered, at that time, two

*Hotchkin, 27-28; Allen's Dict., art. "John Smith;" Cong. Quar., chh. statistics.

CHAP. I.] PASTORS OF CLINTON CHURCH.

25

The Rev. Asahel

hundred and forty members. Strong Norton was its first pastor. He was born in Farmington, Conn., graduated at Yale College in 1790, with the highest honors, studied theology with Dr. Strong and Dr. Smalley, of Connecticut, and was ordained pastor of the Congregational church at Clinton, March 25, 1793. The country around was then little better than a wilderness. The church had no meeting-house, and the ordination services were attended in the open air, for want of a building in the settlement large enough for the occasion, the people being attracted from all the country around by so novel and interesting an event as the ordination of a minister in that new country. Mr. Norton proved to be a most devoted, self-denying, useful, and successful pastor, retaining his pastorate for nearly forty years, and dying at Clinton, May 10, 1853, aged eighty-seven years.

The church retained its Congregational organization during Dr. Norton's entire pastorate, and under his immediate successors. In 1860 the Rev. E. Y. Swift was the pastor, and could report a church membership of two hundred and fifty-one souls. In 1865 the Rev. Albert Erdman was supplying the pulpit, and its membership was reported at two hundred and thirty. The next year the name of Clinton Congregational Church dropped from our denominational list, not again to appear.

*Sprague's Annals, Trin. Cong., 11, 332-36.

The Paris Congregational church proved a prosperous and stable body, and is still reckoned among the Congregational churches of New York. Two of its earliest pastors were the Rev. Eliphalet Steele and Rev. William R. Weeks. According to the report of the Rev. Caleb Alexander, a missionary of the Massachusetts Society, who visited Paris in September, 1801, there were then no less than four Congregational churches in the town, in a population of nearly five thousand souls; and, what is most noticeable, he reports all these churches, at that time, in a prosperous condition.*

The church of Westmoreland, also, still keeps its honored place as one of the oldest Congregational churches in Western New York. The Rev. Joel Bradley was, probably, the first pastor of this church, being ordained in the summer of 1793. Its membership in 1879 was one hundred and sixty-six.

In 1792 a Congregational church was formed at Franklin, Delaware county, perhaps a little east

*"TUESDAY, September 1 [1801]. Rode to Paris. Sixteen years ago Paris was an uncultivated wilderness. It now contains 4,726 inhabitants, four parishes, and four Congregational churches. The Rev. Eliphalet Steele is pastor of the First Church, and the Rev. Mr. Eastman of the Fourth Church. In all the parishes there has been an uncommon attention to religion, deep conviction, and many conversions."- Mr. Alexander's Report in Mass. Miss. Mag., 1, 70.

↑ The Narrative of the Missions of the Connecticut General Association, 1794, p. 6.