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 assembled 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 assemblies 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 circumstances. 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 classes of people. His best and happiest days were passed 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 assembled, 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 circumstances, 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 passed, 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 God, 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 classical 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 shore-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 God 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 associate 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."