which consist of seventy or eighty, or from fifty to one hundred members, and are in a flourishing state; but as yet very few have obtained ministers. In numbers of places the people are very desirous of obtaining candidates for settling. I found very encouraging attention to preaching in almost all places, and was pressed above measure by the solicitations and tears of many, to stay longer with them, or to visit them again. Indeed, it was extremely difficult and painful to leave them. Many times, after preaching in the forenoon, the afternoon, and evening, the people would refuse to go away, and still hold me in religious conversation, interesting inquiry, or serious conference until midnight, and sometimes until one, and even two o'clock in the morning; when I have been obliged to request them to retire."

In the autumn of 1802, the Rev. David Higgins, of Connecticut, accepted a call from the Congregational church in Aurelius, and was in

* Mass. Miss. Mag., 11, 245–47; 111, 9, 349–52.

This venerable missionary, David Smith, was a familiar friend of my father, who was deeply interested in home missions, was one of the original founders of the Massachusetts Missionary Society, and its treasurer for some years. And I remember well the dignified and gentlemanly old missionary; a tall, handsome man; an earnest, enthusiastic Christian, who used to discuss religious topics by the hour with my venerable father. I can easily understand why anxious inquirers should have hung upon his words when preaching, and held him in conference till midnight, and parted from him with tears and entreaties.

CHAP. I.] REV. LEVI NELSON'S MISSION.

43

On the

stalled pastor on the 9th of October. 5th of January, 1803, the Rev. Hugh Wallis was installed over the church at Pompey, "on the east hill;" and on the 2d of February, the Rev. Nathan Darrow was ordained over the church in Homer. These ministers were the first Congregationalists, and probably the first of any religious denomination, to settle on the Military Grant, which at that time contained thirty thousand inhabitants.

This grant was a tract of land some seventy miles long and fifty wide, containing more than a million acres, chiefly in Onondaga and Cayuga counties, which was set apart by the legislature of New York as bounty land for the State soldiers of the Revolution; portions of which were very rapidly settled, largely by New England people.

In 1803 the Rev. Levi Nelson, a missionary of the Massachusetts Missionary Society, in the valley of the Mohawk and along the Black river, reported to the society that in Steuben, within two or three years, there had been an attention to religion and a church formed; and that in the town of Weston [Western], west of Steuben, "the [Congregationalists] professors were formed into a church and hold their meetings every Sabbath."

* Mass. Miss. Mag., 1, 265-68, 313–16.

I suppose this good missionary, Levi Nelson, was the settled pastor of the Congregational church in Lisbon, Conn., from December, 1804, to December, 1855, when he died.

Mr. Nelson found an organized church in No. 4 township; which, he says, "appears orthodox, and I hope in some measure contends for the faith which was once delivered to the saints." He adds: "The members of this church have never failed of meeting every Sabbath since the place was first settled," about 1798.

The towns visited by our New England missionaries in the vicinity of the Black river, which rises in Herkimer county and flows in a northwesterly direction through Lewis and Jefferson counties, into Lake Ontario at Sackett's Harbor, were originally settled by New Englanders, who, having themselves enjoyed the benefits of religious institutions, wished their posterity to enjoy the same; and therefore cordially welcomed the missionaries and anxiously desired to have Congregational pastors settled among them. But these could not be readily found, while ministers of Presbyterian proclivities were at hand and could be easily obtained. These pastors gradually led their flocks into the green pastures and beside the still waters of Presbyterianism, among other sheep which, though under the care of the Great Shepherd, were not of this fold.

From the preceding sketch it appears that New York-northern, central, and southern, from Canada to the Pennsylvania boundary-was not only settled largely by New England people, but for about thirty years-from 1784 to 1814-was

CHAP. 1.]

CO-OPERATIVE MISSIONS.

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largely indebted to New England for its religious teachers. In 1812-13 Connecticut was supporting in part, or entirely, thirty-four missionaries there, the majority of whom were pastors of churches, which they or their predecessors had formed. And these churches and missionaries extended from Clinton and Franklin counties, in the extreme northeastern corner of the State, to Tioga, Chenango, Delaware and Sullivan in the central southern part.

But Connecticut was not alone in this important work. The Massachusetts Missionary Society was an early and earnest co-laborer here; for though the destitute regions at the northward and eastward—particularly in the "District of Maine " were her special field of labor, yet from the year 1800 to the year 1811, there was not a year that the Massachusetts Missionary Society had not one or more missionaries among the new settlements of New York, preaching the gospel, organizing churches, and preparing the way for a permanent ministry there. For we are told by one of these missionaries, in 1805,*

Rev. Jacob Cram's Report, July 26, 1805, in Mass. Miss. Mag., 111, 383-86.

Mr. Hotchkin says: "In 1803 and 1804 no appointments for this field were made [by the Massachusetts Missionary Society], or if made were not fulfilled."-p. 184. He, however, is mistaken; for the Rev. David Smith reported to the society, October 29, 1804, as follows: "Yesterday I returned home from my mission to the new settlements in the northwestern parts of the State of New York, having been out upwards of seventeen

that, "since the year 1800, not far from thirty regular preachers of the word of life have come to reside in the western counties of New York, in places which have been visited by missionaries from the Massachusetts Missionary Society, and are now supported by the inhabitants."

The Berkshire and Columbia counties Congregational Missionary Society also sent missionaries into this field for some fifteen years, from the year of its organization, in 1798. Mr. Hotchkin gives the names of sixteen different ministers who labored in this field, from time to time, under the direction of this society.*

The Hampshire Missionary Society, in Western Massachusetts, also sent missionaries to New York as early as 1803; and even the New Hampshire Missionary Society, with all its own local destitu

weeks; during which time I rode 1,320 miles, preached eightyeight sermons, administered the Lord's Supper five times, baptized thirty-five children, admitted eighteen persons into the church, attended fourteen conferences and five church meetings, visited seven schools and made one hundred and fifty-seven family visits, attended three funerals, and visited nine sick persons.” A pretty fair record of four months' work. - See the Mass. Miss. Mag., 11, 245.

The Rev. Mr. Cram, another of the missionaries of the Massachusetts Missionary Society, was travelling and preaching in different parts of New York in 1803.- See his journal, also in Mass. Miss. Mag., 1, 67-71. And during the summer of the same year (1803) the Rev. Levi Nelson, another Massachusetts Missionary, was hard at work in Western New York. - See his journal in Mass. Miss. Mag., 1, 265–68, 313; also, II, 5.

*New York Miss. Mag., 111, 401-06. Hotchkin, 185, 186.