Morning journal and courier., 1889-05-14
NORTH HAVEN ANNALS.

|
 With Success.
 Now that site has been chosen for tht
 meeting house let us follow the latter to its
 completion. The building committee were
 Simon Futile, John Sanford, Joseph Ives
 Seth Heaton and Ebenezer Blakeslee, ST. Int
 society Dec. 3, 1717, voted to tax themselves
 three pence on the pound "To be laid ou
 upon building meeting house, to be paid a
 or before ye last day of June, 171S, to b'
 paid in money, or provisions, or labour, at
 money prices" On the following March
 171S-they again voted to pay three pence
 more on the pound "For building meeting
 house, to be paid at or before ye last day o1
 June next ensuing ye date hereof, to be paid in money or provisions at money prices.
 Ct is barely possible this vote may be re-
 petition of the former, fer it will be seen il ' makes both taxes become due at the same
 time.) In September, 171S, they passed the
 following:
 "Agreed on by ye society that ye money
 which we doe expect from the Towne Socie-
 ty New Haven] shall be delivered to ye Treasurer to be laid out by ye order of ye
 comtee for ye furtherance of ye meeting house." Then again in 1719, June 2d, they
 say: Agreed upon by ye society that they will pay rate of pence on ye pound, to be | | next ensuing ye date hereof, to be paid in
 money or provisions at ye prices of grain fol-
 lowing: wheat at 6 shillings for bushell-rie l at shillings for bushell-Indian corne
 shillings, said rate to be laid towards ye furtherance of ye meeting house."
 1 Three years had now gone by since the de- cision to build was made, and we may sup pose the sacred structure approaching com pletion. The treasury was, however, in an I exhausted condition, but vote of two pence ! on the pound "to be laid out toward building ye meeting house" reinforced it for a time In this year-172O-it was "agreed on by ye society that Mir. Wetmore shall have liberty to build a pew for his familie in ye meeting
 house on ye south side of said house near ye door,"
 April 4, 1721, they again voted three pence on the pound, this time with the encouraging remark "For finishing ye meeting house" l" So day was about to break at last, after four years of struggle, on one more visible church of God in the colony. At this same meeting they also voted, Agreed by ye society that they would have ye meeting house seeted &C., cording to ye following rules: First as to age, 2dly commission officers, 3d as to rates. Ye seats Dignifed as follows: Ye first seat in ye square body, 2dly ye first short seat, Sally ye second seat in ye square body, 4th ye second short seat, 5thly ye third seat in ys square | body, 6thly ye first seat in ye front gallery, | 7thly ye first seat in ye side gallery, Sthly ye | fourth seat in ye square body, 9thly ye first 1 long seat by ye west door, 10thly ye fifth seat | in ye square body, 11thly ye second seat in ys ! front gallery-ye above written agreed on by ye society,""
 The committee named to thus 'tdignife'' the seats, were Joseph Ives, Lieut.. John Granniss, Seth Heaton, Sergeant John Barnes and Sergeant Moses Blakeslee. An extra half penny rate on the pound was voted at subsequent meeting for again "fnishing of ye meeting house, and in December 1722. the societies committee Care impowered as auditors to make up ye accounts with ye committee which have bin imployed in takes ing care of ye building of ye meeting house."
 By this we infer the building was nearly or quite finished within fraction of five years from it's beginning, and six years from
 the organization of the parish. In all this
 interim as has been stated, their worship had been conducted at the houses of Ebsn- ezer Blakesles and Joseph Ives.
 What was the cost of this building? Reckoned on the basis of their proposition to MT. Wetmore (as we shall see) to give him 6o9 yearly at the first, and then two pence on the pound the second year, which cer- tainly would not be less sum, would make a penny rate raise thirty pounds, and as the aggregate of all their taxes in the five years for this purpose, was fourteen and one-haH pence (errors excepted) they would have raised little over two thousand dollars, a larger sQu cOuslQeIlUS IAo aDuuCauCe or ma tsrial and the low price of labor, than we should think such a building would have cost.
 The meeting house in New Haven was 50 by 50 iE dimensions, and though built be- tween seventy and eighty years earlier, cost structure was 4ox40, and the first building in Wallingford, still smaller and costing much less. But 1t was theirs, cost what it did, and no man may know the sacrifices, and pinch ings and deprivations they endured to erect it. It was built in the wilderness out of the wilderness. The broadaxe, saw and plane almost wholly fashioned its proportions. It must have approached three stories in height at the gables. It was less in area than many & modern barn. It is not likely the roof was truncated like that at New Haven, Milford, | Wallingford and perhaps other places, nor is 1t suppoeed it had "turret." Corner stone laying had not become popular with the set ! tier, and if the unregenerate boy could not ! crawl at his own sweet will beneath the floor then it differed much from many of it's CO., I It doubtless was innocent of | plaster internally and paint externally Its windows were shutterless and floor carpetless It was built by ''days works. " The community was poor; they could hardly more than strug- gle along, patiently working and fondly | hoping. They had no funds to invest in | skilled labor, no hands but their own to fashion it; in other words, they built them- selves into it and it was bone of their bone ! and flesh of their flesh. But impoverished as | they were it is to their lasting honor that ! they never asked assistance of the General | Assembly nor the abatement of one penny of | their rates from first to last. They met like | men, every demand made upon them by the I colony, condition which, judging from the | petitions to the assembly year after year for relief, not ten per cent. of the old societies within the State can be proud of.
 What would we not give for a diagram of he interior of this old building, yea, and for ts ''seeting list" also, that we might number he small but elect host who worshipped hereini
 The ideal construction of this humble edi- ice, places gallery upon the north end l znown as the "front gallery" and another 1pon the east side only, the ''side gal ery', it fixes the pulpit at the south end of he building facing "the square body"; it makes this square body occupy nearly all the Ioor area, with an ''alley" running around he outside of it; on the east side of the pulpit it provides for the "short seats' men- toned. and on the west side or in the south vest corner it builds MT. Wetmore's pew, l 3etween this pew and the pulpit was the ] outh door. The main entrance was the vest door. The stairs to the galleries rose 1t the north end. This plan builds no chim- icy, and furnishes only wooden benches for fitting accommodations. Such an arrange
  economy of room, for such comfort as they ,ould furnish. Rude as it seems to us, it l was palatial to them, and we hear them say- ng like the patriarch of old, this is none 'ther but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. Again and again in those ,arly days were it's gates lifted up with song md thanksgiving, and the King of Glory did here enter in.
 Where did it stand3
 At or near the center of the tract devised 1 Q them by Ar. Pierpont, then called '.The Market Place." later on ''The Green" and low Pierpont Park. If anything, the exact ocation approached little more to the forth and west than to the other bounda- ies, unless encroachments have changed the forth and west lines. That trespasses of his nature did occur, we shall see later. It 2 fair inference that they built the town in he center of their grant, the burying ground being on the north half, and the parade or I market place" on the south. This deduc- ion is confirmed by the report which com nittee made in 1739 in locating their second meeting house, an extract from said report I eadisg as follows: 'The said society shall st their meeting house (new one), which is bout ten rods southward from their old