CHAP. I.]

CHURCH IN GLOVERSVILLE.

7

in 1740, to a place which was subsequently known as "Kent's Parish." He lived and labored here for about thirty-six years, and died among his own people, July, 1776, aged seventy-two years.*

In the town of Salem, Washington county, east of the Hudson, a Congregational church appears to have been organized soon after the first settlement of the town, though little can be learned about it previous to 1764. From that time to 1832, "it was strictly independent in its organization, and Congregational in its form of government and worship." It was placed under the jurisdiction of the Bedford Presbytery, in 1832. The Rev. Joel Benedict, D.D., preached to this church between 1782-84.†

In 1752 a Congregational church was gathered at Gloversville, in Fulton county, in the centre of Eastern New York. This church still continues on its ancient foundation, and has held on its way and grown stronger and stronger to the present day, reporting a membership, in 1879, of three hundred and forty-four souls.

*MS. Letter to the author, from the Hon. Abner Hazeltine, Jamestown, N. Y., dated July 9, 1874; National Portrait Gallery, art. James Kent. In the notice of the chancellor's grandfather, he is said to have been the pastor of a "Presbyterian" church at Newtown, Conn. But the Newtown church was Congregational from its birth in 1715, and remains so to the present day. ↑ Bolton, 1, 484-85; Sprague's Annals, Trinitarian Congrega. tionalists, 1, 682-83.

There was, in 1850, at Stillwater, Saratoga county, N. Y., a Congregational church, which claimed to be almost a hundred years old. It was organized in Canaan, Conn., June 28-29, 1752, when eighty persons-forty-five males and thirty-five females-"subscribed with their own. hands" the "Articles of Faith, Congregational Church Government and Covenant," adopted by the church-"pure, sound, orthodox and evangelical, drawn from the sacred oracles of truth." A revival of religion visited the people, and twenty were added to the church, previous to 1761. On the 20th of October of that year, Robert Campbell, one of their own number, was ordained and installed as their pastor. In April following, 1762, "at a fast appointed to know our duty in respect to this church moving to Stillwater [N. Y.] it was fully agreed this church should remove from Canaan to Stillwater." And, in pursuance of this agreement, the greater part of the church, with their pastor, removed the same year and settled the town, and constituted the first Congregational church of Stillwater, and the first of this order in all the new settlements between Albany and the Canada line.

Subsequently, Congregational churches were organized in numerous other settlements, in that and neighboring counties; as, for example, at Ballston, Maltaville, Greenfield, Corinth, Moreau, East Line, and Milton, in Saratoga county; at

CHAP. I.]

THE STILLWATER CHURCH.

9

Kingsborough, in Washington county; and in Bolton, Warren county.

Of this cluster of Congregational churches every one has passed away, or apostatized to Presbyterianism. The Stillwater church mained faithful to the principles of its founders for more than a hundred years; and in 1850 dedicated a new Congregational meeting-house. But, as far back as 1817-20, this church went into an agreement with a Presbyterian church, which its own pastor, Mark Tucker, a licentiate of the Albany Presbytery, had formed in Stillwater Village, by which the pastor was allowed to serve both churches, on the "plan of union." The result was, that after a few years, the united churches were served by Presbyterian ministers only, and finally the old Congregational church went the way of many other early Congregational churches of New York-straight into the allembracing arms of Presbyterianism.* The Rev.

*For the materials of this sketch of the Stillwater church, I am indebted to the Hon. Abner Hazeltine, of Jamestown, N. Y.; and to a little pamphlet, entitled Historical Reminiscences of the Congregational Church in Stillwater, by Rev. Lebbeus Armstrong. The quotations are from the church records, embodied in the Reminiscences. Mr. Armstrong, whose whole ministerial life was spent in Saratoga county, was a native of Westchester county, and was raised in one of the border Congregational churches of that county. He was an excellent man, a most useful minister, and a thorough Congregationalist to the last. He died some twenty or twenty-five years since, probably in the little hamlet of Jonesville, between Troy and Ballston Spa, where he had lived during the last years of his very long and

Dr. Mark Tucker, who was pastor of this ancient Stillwater church for some time, and knew some of the original members, bears this testimony concerning them: "The original members were Puritans, sound in the faith, many of them real divines. I have never known so able a church in word and doctrine. Deacon Seymore and Deacon Morey were pillars in the church."*

In 1772 a Congregational church was organized at Canaan Four Corners, Columbia county, N. Y., just over the Massachusetts line. And it still lives, though the only survivor of half a dozen sister churches, which the Connecticut people planted in that county, about that time. Ten years later, in 1782, a Congregational church was formed at Howells, in Orange county, which also has kept its first estate, and reported in 1879 a membership of one hundred and twenty-one souls.

In 1785 another Congregational church was formed at Middleton, in the same county, which still survives and flourishes with a membership of two hundred and thirty-eight souls.

Many of these early Congregational churches

useful life. When pastor of the Congregational church at Moreau, Saratoga county, Mr. Armstrong organized a temperance society, which is reputed to have been one of the first, if not the very first, ever organized in this country.-MS. Letter from Mr. Hazeltine, 1874.

* MS. Letter from Dr. Tucker, dated Wethersfield, Conn., February 4, 1865.

CHAP. I.]

THE MIDDLETOWN CHURCH.

11.

of New York have interesting histories of their own, which ought to be gathered up and handed down to posterity. Take for example the church in Middletown, Orange county. This flourishing town was first settled by Congregational people from Long Island. The church was organized June 10, 1785, by the aid of Rev. Charles Seeley, of Sussex county, New Jersey, who was their pastor until June 10, 1797. Half an acre or more of land was purchased, and a meetinghouse was built upon it in 1786, and the ground around was consecrated as a burial place. The church appears to have been a remarkably orderly and thrifty body from the start. Some of its

regulations were quaint and peculiar, but very suggestive and good. Take the following: At a regular church meeting in 1792, it was voted, "That any member failing to appear at the time of day appointed [for the next regular church meeting] shall be thought worthy of blame, unless they offer a reasonable excuse." And this became the established rule of the church, and for fifty years an excuse was required of every member who was absent from any meeting of the church. Another standing rule of this primitive body of Christians required every member who wished to leave a religious meeting during service time, to ask permission of the moderator or leader of the meeting. Still another curious rule was, that after the opening prayer of every religious meeting, before proceeding to business