Mr. Van Dyck continued the practice of law until about the time of the outbreak of the Revolutionary War. He was brought forward as a lay-reader under the auspices of the Rev. Ebenezer Kneeland, successor in the Church at Stratford to the Rev. Dr. Johnson whose granddaughter, Charity, he had married. From the records of the Episcopal Church in the adjoining town of Milford, it appears that at a vestry meeting, held April 17, 1776, after electing wardens and vestrymen, Mr. Kneeland being present, it was "voted that Mr.
Henry Van d.y.k.e be desired to read prayers on such Sundays as Dr.
Kneeland shall be absent, and that we will see him rewarded for his trouble." This was done with entire unanimity by the advice and consent of Mr. Kneeland. An item in a publication of the time, under date of August, 1779, though incorrect in reporting him as a clergyman, gives evidence that he had ceased to pursue the legal profession: "The _Rev._ Henry Van d.y.k.e is at Norwalk, and wants to go to Long Island with his family."
After the independence of the colonies had been declared, the full use of the liturgy of the Church of England was no longer tolerated, and for ten years there was seldom any a.s.sembling for prayers or preaching or any new choice of officers in the Church at Milford. But in January, 1786, Mr. Van Dyck, being then in Holy Orders, proposed to take the care of the churches in Milford and West Haven, and his proposition was acceded to at a salary of 90 pounds per annum; Milford agreeing to pay two-thirds of it and West Haven the remainder. He removed with his family to Milford in the May following, and the church thought itself happily provided with a "pasture" for life.
In this, however, there was disappointment, for in February, 1787, "the appearance of a committee from Poughkeepsie" to secure him as rector in that place and Fishkill, made the people of Milford and West Haven somewhat indignant. They claimed that his engagement with them was for a longer period, while he affirmed that it terminated at the end of the year. He had been in treaty with the Church at Poughkeepsie for some time, and visited and officiated in it before he was in Holy Orders. The records show that he conducted divine service in Christ Church as early as June, 1784, and that the congregation desired the vestry to adopt such measures in conjunction with their brethren of Trinity Church, Fishkill, as might be proper for the settlement of Mr. Van Dyck.
The arrangement was completed by offering him as compensation the use of the glebe, containing more than two hundred and fifty acres, and, 80 pounds New York currency from the parish in Poughkeepsie and 40 pounds from Fishkill. They wished him to come whether in orders or not, but nothing more was heard of him till he addressed a letter dated Stratford, May 22, 1785, to the vestry of Christ Church, requesting certificates and testimonials which would ent.i.tle him to ordination by Bishop Seabury who was already in Nova Scotia and "momentarily expected" in Connecticut.
"Our ordination," he said, "will take place immediately on his arrival, for which we are making all possible preparation, after which we shall repair to our several congregations as soon as we can." The preparation was probably under the direction and oversight of the Rev. Mr. Learning, the first choice of the clergy of Connecticut for bishop.
On the second Sunday after his ordination, in fulfilment of a promise which he had made, the Rev. Mr. Van Dyck visited the church in Fishkill, but he was only a bird of pa.s.sage in doing this. His private affairs were in the way. He had become indebted to a gentleman in New York to the amount of L125, and under the trespa.s.s law of the State, if he entered it and remained, he was liable to arrest and imprisonment. The Legislature, by vote, permitted him to return, and finally an amicable adjustment was effected with the creditor through the agency of the vestry in Poughkeepsie, and he was established as rector of Christ Church, Whitsunday, May 27, 1787, and continued in charge till 1791. He then removed to New Jersey and became rector of St. Peter"s Church, Amboy, and Christ Church, New Brunswick; but in July, 1793, he accepted the rectorship of St. Mary"s, Burlington, which he held for three years. His residence in this place was saddened by painful domestic afflictions. The death of his widowed mother, who had been an inmate of his family for many years, followed by that of two of his daughters under peculiarly sorrowful circ.u.mstances, must have made him quite willing to leave Burlington, and a.s.sume, in 1797, the charge of St. James"s Church, Newtown, L. I. Here he continued to officiate for five years, and he is said to have been the first clergyman who devoted his entire services to that parish. This was his last and longest rectorship, for he left Newtown in 1802, and on the 12th of September in that year he conducted the services in Grace Church, Jamaica, then vacant, "and offered to officiate further."
Davis [Footnote: John Davis, _Travels of four Years and a half in the United States_ (1798-1802), p. 155.], in his travels in the United States, speaks thus vividly of a visit he made to Newtown, and of his entertainment in the place: "I was fortunate enough to procure lodgings at Newtown under the roof of the Episcopal minister, Mr. Vand.y.k.e. The parsonage-house was not unpleasantly situated. The porch was shaded by a couple of huge locust trees, and accommodated with a long bench. Here I often sat with my host, who like Parson Adams always wore the ca.s.sock; but he did not read AEschylus. Mr. Vand.y.k.e was at least sixty; yet if a colt, a pig, or any other quadruped entered his paddock, he sprang from his seat with more than youthful agility, and vociferously chased the intruder from his domain. I could not but smile to behold the parson running after a pig and mingling his cries with those of the animal."
The New York Evening _Post_ of September 17, 1804, contained this obituary: "Died early this morning, the Rev. Henry Van Dyck, aged sixty, one of the clergy of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and formerly rector of St. James"s Church, Newtown. He was possessed of an affectionate heart and excellent understanding. He discharged with zeal, fidelity, and ability, the duties of his calling. In private life he was esteemed by all to whom he was known. Funeral this afternoon at five o"clock from his house, No.
4 Cedar street, New York, where his friends and acquaintances are invited to attend."
It is stated in the Rev. Dr. Hills"s _History of the Church in Burlington_, p. 339, that two children survived him--"a son and a daughter; Richard Vand.y.k.e married, had a large family, and lived to a good old age. He died in 1856." The death of the daughter, who never married, occurred thirty years earlier.
ASHBEL BALDWIN was born in a farm-house on the hills of Litchfield, Connecticut, March 7, 1757. His father, Isaac Baldwin, was a graduate of Yale College in the cla.s.s of 1735, and an older brother, who bore the paternal name, was graduated in 1774. Ashbel was later, graduating in 1776, the year of the Declaration of American Independence. Isaac Baldwin the senior, on leaving college, began the study of theology and was licensed as a Congregational minister, and preached for a time in what is now the town of Washington, Conn. [Footnote: Dexter"s _Yale Biographies and Annals_, 1701-1745; p. 523.] But he soon relinquished the study, and turned his attention to agricultural pursuits, settling upon a farm in Litchfield, and becoming an eminently useful official in the public affairs of the town and county.
His son Ashbel contracted a lameness in boyhood by going into the water and imprudently exposing himself to a cold, which stiffened and shortened one of his limbs and made his gait ever afterward unequal and limping. He had not relinquished his attachment to the Congregational order when he graduated and subsequently took a temporary tutorship in a Church family in New York. Stanch churchmen in those days, if for any cause the parish church was closed on Sunday, turned their parlors into chapels, and had in private the full morning service. Mr. Baldwin, being the educated member of the household, was required to act as lay-reader, and not knowing how to use the Prayer-Book, and yet ashamed to confess his ignorance to the head of the family, he sought the a.s.sistance and friendship of the gardener, who gave him the necessary instructions, and very soon love and admiration of the Liturgy and conversion to the Church followed. How long he continued in his private tutorship is unknown.
For two or three years during the Revolutionary War he held the appointment of a quartermaster in the Continental army, and was stationed for a time at Litchfield, where there was a large depository of military stores, "princ.i.p.ally taken at the surrender of General Burgoyne," and guarded by a considerable detachment of soldiers. For his services in this capacity he received a pension from government, which became his princ.i.p.al means of support in the last year of his life.
Upon the cessation of hostilities and the acknowledgment of Independence, he applied himself to theological studies, and though but a candidate for Holy Orders, he was an interested spectator at the meeting of the clergy in Woodbury on the Feast of the Annunciation, 1783, when choice was made of the first bishop of Connecticut.
On Monday, June 20, 1785, Bishop Seabury arrived at Newport, R.I., after a voyage from London of three months, including his stay in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, and reaching his future home in Connecticut a week later, preparations were immediately begun to meet his clergy and hold his first ordination. Of the four candidates admitted by him to the diaconate in this city a century ago to-day, Van Dyck, Baldwin, and Shelton belonged to Connecticut, and were recommended by its clergy, of whom in convention a.s.sembled the Rev. Jeremiah Leaming was president. Mr. Baldwin was sent at once to his native place, and continued in charge of St. Michael"s Church, Litchfield, till 1793, when he resigned and accepted the rectorship of the venerable parish at Stratford.
He was instrumental in awakening the zeal of the Episcopalians of Litchfield county, and leading them to re-open their churches after the desolations of the war as well as to project new ones. His recognized position in the diocese was early one of influence and responsibility, and his energy and facility in the dispatch of business made him especially useful in the deliberative and legislative a.s.semblies of the Church. He was chosen Secretary of the Convention of the Diocese of Connecticut in 1796, and continued to discharge the duties of that office for a period of nearly thirty years. He was a deputy to the General Convention for an equally long period, and held the office of Secretary in the House of Deputies, from which he retired in 1823 with the thanks of that body "for his long and faithful services."
As the General Convention of 1799 was the first which Mr. Baldwin attended in the capacity of a deputy, so that of 1823 was the last. He was conspicuous in that council for remarkable self- possession, and promptness and facility in giving expression to his opinions. The type of his theology led him to take the "old paths," and reverence for the memory of the bishop who ordained him held him up to a high standard of legislation for the Church.
He would have her doctrines and discipline well defined and guarded, and his first action in the House of Deputies was to move a resolution to take into consideration the propriety of framing Articles of Religion. He lived at a period when Puritanism was rife in New England, especially in Connecticut, and while it was his policy to avoid being drawn into controversy, his devotion to the interests of the Episcopal Church never faltered or became doubtful under any pressure of circ.u.mstances. He was a parson without the smallest trace of bigotry, and attracted and retained the affections of all who was privileged to know him well in his private and official capacity. He was a good reader of the Liturgy, an instructive, if not a learned preacher, and had a clear, sonorous voice, and a persuasive manner which rendered his discourses acceptable to all cla.s.ses of people. His best and happiest days were pa.s.sed in Stratford, where for over thirty years he held the rectorship of the parish which had been served by those two eminent divines, Johnson and Leaming.
For a portion of the time he had this parish in connection with the neighboring one at Tashua, ministering to the latter every third Sunday, and holding frequent services in school-houses and private dwellings. His mode of travelling was in a chaise, and on one occasion he drove up rather hurriedly to meet an appointment at a house where the people had already a.s.sembled, and stepping nimbly down from his seat he was accosted by the host who was not a churchman: "I suppose, Mr. Baldwin, as it is the season of Lent, you will not take any refreshments before beginning the service."
"No, nothing for me," was the reply; "but my horse is a Presbyterian; he must be fed."
Mr. Baldwin was a man of keen discernment, quick apprehensions, and ready retort. In social intercourse he had wonderful powers of adapting himself to circ.u.mstances, and was alike an acceptable visitor in the families of the wealthy and refined, the humble and the uneducated, and a welcome guest at their tables. It was his practice, as it was the practice of many of the clergy in that day, to administer baptism in private houses, using the occasion of a lecture to make the office a public one. Very often whole households were baptized in this way, and sometimes their connection with the Church was afterwards unfortunately lost through neglect to exercise a proper degree of vigilance and care.
Mr. Baldwin married Miss Clarissa Johnson of Guilford, a grand- niece of his predecessor in Stratford, the Rev. Dr. Samuel Johnson. She died childless many years before him, and he never married again. He was in the full possession of his mental faculties and blessed with a fair degree of health when he resigned, in 1824, the Rectorship of Christ Church. For a time he lingered in the neighborhood of Stratford, but could not be idle, and was soon in charge of the parish in Meriden, and afterwards officiated in several places, as Tashua, Wallingford, North Haven, Oxford, and Quakers" Farms. Ten years were thus pa.s.sed, doing what he could for the Church which he had served so faithfully and loved so much; but in 1834 failure of eyesight and other infirmities obliged him to cease from all public service and go into retirement. It was natural for him to dwell for the rest of his days among or near his old parishioners, and for many years, as it suited his convenience, he resided at New Haven, Bridgeport, and Stratford. He was at the latter place in 1837, when he addressed a letter to Bishop Brownell, taking an affectionate leave of the Diocesan Convention then sitting in New Haven, and resigning the only office of trust in its gift which he had continued to hold.
The letter was characteristic of the man, chaste and beautiful in its style, and pathetic in its allusions. The concluding paragraph read:
"My dear Sir, when I first entered the Church her condition was not very flattering. Surrounded by enemies on every side, and opposed with much virulence, her safety and even her very existence were at times somewhat questionable; but by the united and zealous exertions of the clergy, attended by the blessings of her great Founder, she has been preserved in safety through every storm, and now presents herself with astonishment to every beholder, not as a grain of mustard seed, but as a beautiful tree, spreading its salubrious branches over our whole country. The Church, by a strict adherence to its ancient landmarks, its priesthood, its liturgy, and its government, has been preserved from those schisms which seem to threaten the peace of a very respectable body of Christians in our country. May the same unanimity and zeal which animated our fathers, still be preserved in the Church. My days of pilgrimage, I know, are almost closed, and I can do no more than to be in readiness, by the grace of G.o.d, to leave the Church militant in peace. May I be permitted, Sir, to ask the prayers of my bishop and his clergy, that my last days may be happy."
Mr. Baldwin went to Rochester, N.Y., a few years later, and became an inmate in the family of one who had removed thither from Connecticut, and who was under special obligations to him for kindness and care bestowed in previous years. He died in that city on Sunday, February 8, 1846, lacking twenty-seven days to complete his eighty-ninth year. There is a memorial window erected to him in the chancel of Grace Church, Long Hill, Conn., which occupies ground included in the scene of his early ministration.
PHILO SHELTON was a grandson of Daniel Shelton, the founder of the New England branch of the Shelton family in America. He was one of a family of fourteen children, and was born in Ripton (now Huntington) on the 7th of May, 1754. He received a cla.s.sical education, and was the first alumnus of Yale College who bore the name of Shelton. He graduated in 1775, just after the outbreak of the Revolutionary war, and soon, as a candidate for Holy Orders, he acted in the capacity of a lay-reader in several places until his ordination. When a British expedition under the command of Gen. Tryon was fitted out at New York in 1779, to subdue the sh.o.r.e-towns of Connecticut, Fairfield was one of the places invaded, the torch was applied to the dwellings of the rich and the poor, and the Episcopal church there, the parsonage, and other property belonging to the parish were consumed in the general conflagration. This destruction impoverished and depressed the people as a whole, and many of them fled; but the few churchmen who remained rallied from all discouragement, rebuilt their houses, and met in them on Sundays to worship G.o.d according to the forms of the old liturgy, Philo Shelton having been secured for a lay-reader. He read at the same time for the Episcopalians at Stratfield, where a wooden church was built as early as 1748, and also for those in Weston, where the flock had not been broken up by the disasters of the Revolution.
While waiting for ordination, he settled in life and married, April 20, 1781, Lucy, daughter of Philip Nichols, Esq., of Stratfield (now Bridgeport), [Footnote: The marriage was undoubtedly solemnized by the Rev. Christopher Newton of Ripton, the only Church clergyman in the vicinity, and still Mr. Shelton"s rector. He baptized the first child, _Lucy_, born June 27, 1782.] strong churchman and first lay-delegate chosen to represent the Diocese of Connecticut in the General Convention. In February, 1785, a formal arrangement was made that his services in each of the three places should be proportioned to the number of churchmen residing in them respectively, and until he should be in Orders it was stipulated to pay him twenty shillings lawful money for each day that he officiated. Ashbel Baldwin, his nearest neighbor in parochial work, and most intimate friend and a.s.sociate in efforts to build up the Church in Connecticut, used to say that the hands of Bishop Seabury were first laid upon the head of Mr. Shelton on the 3d of August, 1785, so that his name really begins the long list of clergy who have had ordination in this country by bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church. In the Diocesan Convention, under an established rule of that body, he invariably outranked Mr. Baldwin, and so was frequently the presiding officer in the absence of the Bishop, which is another proof that he was his senior by ordination as well as in years. At the first convocation of the clergy after the death of Bishop Jarvis, held in Stratford, June 1, 1813, Mr. Baldwin, as Secretary, entered the names of twenty-nine who were present, and then recorded: "The Rev. Doctor Mansfield desired to be excused from serving as President on account of his age and infirmities; which excuse was accepted by the brethren. The Rev. Philo Shelton, being the next oldest presbyter, took the chair." Should it be said that this does not refer to the diaconate, it may be answered that the obituary notice of his widow, who died in 1838, speaks of him as "the _first_ clergyman ordained by the first American Bishop."
After his admission to Holy Orders, according to his own statement, Mr. Shelton took full "pastoral charge of the cure of Fairfield, including Stratfield and Weston, dividing his time equally between the three churches, with a salary of one hundred pounds per annum from the congregations and the use of what lands belonged to the cure." It was a small living for a clergyman who already had a wife and two children, but the Revolutionary War had so reduced the people and their resources, that it could not well be made larger. Five years pa.s.sed away before the enterprise of building a new church in Fairfield was really begun, and then it was erected about a mile west of the site where the old one stood, and was only inclosed and made fit for occupancy at the time, and not finished and consecrated till 1798.
The population was drifting from Stratfield toward the borough of Bridgeport, and in 1801 it was deemed advisable to demolish the old church and build a new one in a more central situation. Mr.
Shelton saw the wisdom of this movement and encouraged it, though it was attended very naturally with some painful considerations, and took away a pleasing picture from the landscape which filled the vision of Dr. Dwight when he wrote his poem ent.i.tled "Greenfield Hill":
"Here, sky-encircled, Stratford"s churches beam, And Stratfield"s turrets greet the roving eye."
The new church in the borough was so far completed as to be used for public worship in the beginning of Advent, 1801, and two years later "the ground floor was sold at public vendue for the purpose of building the pews and seats thereon, and finishing the church; and the money raised in the sale amounted to between six and seven hundred dollars." The cost of the building--about thirty-five hundred dollars--was over and above this, and was met by the voluntary contributions of the people. Mr. Shelton, in speaking of the completion of the whole work, said: "It has been conducted in harmony, with good prudence, strict economy, and a degree of elegance and taste which does honor to the committee, and adds respectability to the place."
For nearly forty years the scene of his ministerial labors was undisturbed, and he dwelt among his people in quietness and confidence, and had the satisfaction of seeing them attain to a high degree of worldly prosperity, and St. John"s Church in Bridgeport, especially, to be one of the strongest and most flourishing in the diocese. The silent influence of a good life carried him along smoothly, and left its gentle impress wherever he was known. "A faithful pastor, a guileless and G.o.dly man," is a part of the inscription upon the marble monument erected over his ashes in the Mountain Grove Cemetery at Bridgeport, a few years since, by his son William, and these words sum up very appropriately his ministerial and Christian character.
While he confined himself closely to the duties of his cure, he shrank not from work put upon him by the diocese, and was for twenty-four years a member of the standing committee, and a firm supporter of ecclesiastical authority in seasons of trial and trouble. He was also several times chosen a deputy to the General Convention, and never failed to attend its sessions.
There were things that gave him great pain towards the end of his days, and "put his confidence in the providence of G.o.d to a severe test." He and Mr. Baldwin, so long earnest and friendly workers in adjoining fields of labor, appear to have reached the same determination at the same time, and probably they conferred together before resigning their respective rectorships, which they both did in 1824. Bishop Brownell, referring to this action in his address to the annual convention of that year said: "These clergymen were admitted to their ministry at the first Episcopal ordination ever held in America, and have served their respective parishes for more than thirty years. They have labored faithfully in the Church in this diocese during its darkest periods of depression, and through the progressive stages of its advancement they have taken an important part in its councils. They have "borne the burden and heat of the day," and are ent.i.tled to the grat.i.tude of all those who enjoy the fruits of their counsels and labors."
Mr. Shelton confined his services after this wholly to the Church in Fairfield, but he did not long survive the change. He died on the 27th of February, 1825, and was buried under the chancel of the old church in Mill Plain, Fairfield, where he had ministered so many years, including his time as lay-reader, and a marble tablet was provided by the congregation to mark his resting-place, on which among other things were inscribed the date of his birth, graduation, admission to Holy Orders, and the words: "being the first clergyman episcopally ordained in the United States."
In 1842 the parishioners of Trinity Church, Fairfield, voted to remove all the public services to the chapel, which had been built seven years before in the borough of Southport, about a mile and a half distant from Mill Plain, and to transfer the site, t.i.tle, and rights of the parish to that edifice. The old church was afterwards taken down and parts of it used to build the rectory in Southport. The memorial tablet was also transferred, but on the afternoon of March 11, 1854, the Southport Church was accidentally burnt, and the tablet destroyed. The remains of Mr. Shelton now have a final resting-place with his sainted wife and two of his daughters in the cemetery before mentioned. A monumental tablet in the wall of St. John"s Church, Bridgeport, "bears an affectionate testimony to his Christian worth and ministerial fidelity." Bishop Brownell, in his address to the Annual Convention of the Diocese, said of him very truly: "He has faithfully and successfully labored for almost forty years in the parish from which his Divine Master has now called him to his rest. He has taken an important part in the ecclesiastical concerns of the diocese, from the period of its first organization, and the moderation and prudence of his counsels have contributed, in no small degree, to the welfare of the Church. For simplicity of character, amiable manners, unaffected piety, and a faithful devotion to the duties of the ministerial office, he has left an example by which all his surviving brethren may profit, and which few of them can hope to surpa.s.s."
His widow survived him thirteen years--an intelligent and devout churchwoman who, as it has been said, "left a name only to be loved and honored by her friends." Two of his sons entered the ministry. The younger of them, George Augustus Shelton, a graduate of Yale College, died in 1863, Rector of St. James"s Church, Newtown, L. I. The other, the late William Shelton, D. D., succeeded his father for a time in Fairfield, and then went to Buffalo, where for more than half a century he was the distinguished Rector of St. Paul"s Church, the oldest parish in that city.
Both died childless, and the name of Shelton has disappeared from the list of our clergy.
The Bishop then proceeded with the service, being a.s.sisted in the administration by the Rev. Dr. Beardsley and the Rev. Messrs.
Francis Goodwin and S. O. Seymour of Hartford. After the service, the churchwomen of Middletown entertained the clergy and visitors at the Berkeley Divinity School.
The following is a list of the clergymen who were present:
The Right Rev. the Bishop; the Rev. Dr. Beardsley of New Haven; the Rev. Messrs. E. W. Babc.o.c.k, New Haven; Prof. John Binney, Middletown; J. W. Bradin, Hartford; Sylvester Clarke, Bridgeport; Francis Goodwin, Hartford; F. D. Harriman, Middle Haddam; Prof.
Samuel Hart, Hartford; J. W. Hyde, West Hartford; Prof. W. A.
Johnson, Middletown; W. F. Nichols, Hartford; J. L. Parks, Middletown; Prof. F. T. Russell, Waterbury; B. S. Sanderson, Wethersfield; S. O. Seymour, Hartford; John Townsend, Middletown; S. H. Watkins. Bristol; W. W. Webb, Middletown; Charles Westermann, Middle Haddam; Henry Edwards, Hagerstown, Md.: W. B.
Walker, Augusta, Ga.
APPENDIX.
COMMEMORATION AT ABERDEEN,
OCTOBER 7-8, 1884.
In his address to the Diocesan Convention of 1884, Bishop Williams said:
"I have received an invitation to be present at Aberdeen, Scotland, during the first week in October next, and to take part in the celebration of the centenary of the consecration of our first Bishop. This invitation I have, after much hesitation, decided, with your consent, my brethren, to accept. And inasmuch as the month of August and early September are not very available for visitations of the parishes, as it is more than forty years since I was in Great Britain, and as it is very unlikely that I shall ever visit it again, I have also determined, again with your consent, to sail for England, if so G.o.d wills, on the nineteenth of July, hoping to be permitted to return hither as soon as the services of the Commemoration are ended.
"I am to be the bearer of an address to the Episcopate of Scotland from the House of Bishops in this country; and it would be peculiarly gratifying to my feelings, as well as most seemly in itself considered, could I also carry out an Address from our own Convention. If our whole Church owes a debt of grat.i.tude to the venerable prelates who laid hands on Seabury, surely this Diocese has especial cause to acknowledge to their successors the obligations under which the loving kindness of those prelates has placed those who have gone before us, ourselves, and those who shall come after us to the latest generations."