VII.
CHURCHES, BRIDGES AND A SCHOOL.
1809-1824.
The earliest religious services held in Unadilla village appear to have been conducted by “Father” Nash. He came to Otsego County as a missionary near the end of the eighteenth century and labored in many parts of the county with great zeal and fruitful results for the remainder of his life. His wife often went with him to distant places on horseback, she leading in the singing while he conducted the services. Of many Episcopal Churches in the county, he, in a spiritual sense, was the founder.
“Father” Nash had held services many times in Unadilla before St. Matthew’s Church was founded, the meetings being held in private houses and even in barns. To his influence was largely due the denominational character of that Church, established as it was in a community composed so largely of men who had come from the home of Congregationalism. It was due to his influence upon them, combined with the fact that several of these men had already acquired some acquaintance with the Episcopal faith, that the Church took on the Episcopal character. These men were Curtis Noble, Isaac Hayes, Josiah Thatcher, Abijah H. Beach, Solomon Martin, Dr. Cone and Sherman Page. They had all come from some of the few Connecticut towns in which Episcopalianism had been able at last to secure a foothold. To its forms and faith they were not wholly strangers.
Among the first Episcopal clergymen who preached in Connecticut was a member of the family to which Mr. Beach belonged, the Rev. John Beach, who changed to that faith from Congregationalism in 1732, and became an active man in the formation of Episcopal Churches in several Litchfield towns. In 1740, he rendered such services to Woodbury, the ancestral home of Solomon Martin, where in 1783 was held a meeting which has historic fame as the first step taken in this country to secure Episcopal authority, Samuel Seabury being selected as bishop.
In 1736, the Rev. Jonathan Arnold, another Episcopal clergyman, held services at New Milford, the home of Mr. Noble and Mr. Hayes, “where the use of the Lord’s prayer, the creed and the ten commandments, or the reading of the scriptures in divine service was never before known”, while at New Milford in 1764 a church was organized. At Hebron, the home of the Cones, was formed in 1734 the sixth Episcopal Church ever known in the state of Connecticut; while at Cheshire, the home of Sherman Page, a Church edifice had first been erected in 1760. The Nobles of New Milford were among the most active supporters of the Episcopal Church in that place. Mr. Hayes when he came to Unadilla, although his sympathies as an Englishman’s son, were perhaps in that direction, was not a professing Episcopalian. In New Milford dwelt friends of Episcopalianism named Thatcher. Partridge Thatcher, who went there originally from Lebanon, was the architect of the New Milford church. To the same family belonged Josiah Thatcher who came from Norwalk, where also Episcopal beginnings had been made.
When finally it was decided to form a Church in Unadilla, the chief inspiring cause was a desire to elevate the moral tone of the community: a frontier settlement seldom maintains a high standard of social life. The motive, therefore, was not so much to found a Church of any one denomination, as to found a Church of some kind. The denominational character of the society was finally determined by a vote. Sherman Page presided at the meeting and the vote was equally divided between Episcopalians and Presbyterians. Mr. Page was therefore called upon to give a casting vote, and thus turned the scale in favor of an Episcopal Church. This meeting was held in 1809.
For the first permanent rector, the wardens and vestrymen sent to Connecticut and secured the Rev. Russell Wheeler who came in the spring of 1814, remaining until August 1819. Josiah Thatcher made a special journey to Connecticut to arrange for his coming. Mr. Wheeler was a graduate of Williams College and had studied divinity under Bishop Hobart. Before coming to Unadilla he had been rector of a Church in Watertown, Connecticut, ten miles from New Milford. After leaving Unadilla, he was rector of the Church in Morris. For him was built the house that formerly stood where now stands the Sperry residence, and in which afterwards lived Albert Benton and Bradford Kingsley.
For one year following Mr. Wheeler, the Rev. James Keeler was rector, and then came the Rev. Marcus A. Perry who remained five years, his home being in the Howard house. Next came the rector who of all men that ever ministered over this Church perhaps made the deepest personal impression and exerted the widest influence on the community, the Rev. Norman H. Adams. He was rector of St. Matthew’s from 1825 until 1853, the year of his death. In the year of his coming, Colonel George H. Noble addressed to his cousin, Susan E. Hayes, who was then in New York, a letter in which he said:
“We are now preparing for Christmas, on which occasion we calculate to have Mr. Adams preach for us. He commences an engagement to preach for us for half the time for six months. He has preached here two Sundays and was very much liked by all who heard him. He writes elegantly and is quite an orator; so I think we shall not have so many dull, go-to-meetingless Sundays this winter as we had anticipated.”
The grave of Mr. Adams with the striking monument that indicates its site is a familiar spot in the churchyard. Mr. Adams came from Greene County and was an old friend of Arnold B. Watson, who came to Unadilla from the same neighborhood.