While referring to Backus, we will note a statement made by him to the effect that some of the Rogerene youth having put an end to their own lives, this was a cause of the decline of their Society. Here is a curious dragon’s tooth, and it is difficult to see how it was manufactured. Suffice it to say that, in extensive historical and genealogical researches for the purposes of this history (and in researches by the authors of the Rogers and the Bolles Genealogies, both of which works largely include allied families), there has been found but one instance of suicide among the Rogerenes, and this was that of a young man who took his own life while under the influence of melancholia which came upon him during a period of religious revival. This young man was not of Rogers descent. There was, however, in New London, at a somewhat later date, a young man of Rogers and Rogerene descent, who became hopelessly insane. Because of the devotion of his mother to a church in New London he was brought up in that church. It is said that he was a very bright and promising youth, and that no cause could be assigned to his derangement other than excitement induced by a revival in that church. This is mentioned to show that such instances are not confined to any denomination.
Backus also says that “as late as 1763” some Rogerenes “clapped shingles and pieces of wood together around the meeting-house” in Norwich. Since he gives no authority for this statement, it is likely to be one of the many fabrications imposed upon the public as “history.” If any such thing occurred, it was doubtless a Rogerene warning to that church to desist certain meddling or persecutions. It will not only be remembered that the date given is during the height of the persecution that induced the great countermove, but that from the Norwich church had issued those who apprehended and scourged the party of Rogerenes on their way to Lebanon.[[188]] Mr. Backus, with the real or assumed lack of perception common to ecclesiastical historians when treating upon the Rogerenes, adds that “the rulers having learned so much wisdom as only to remove these people from disturbing others, without fines or corporeal punishment,” they had ceased from such things in a great measure. It would have been contrary to the inclination of such writers to perceive that the Rogerenes disturbed no one but in defense of the truth for which they stood, and that when persecution on account of their own religion ceased, they had no further need to disturb the religious observances of others.
Barber, in his “Historical Collections of New Jersey,” states that there is a tradition to the effect that, about eighty years before the date of the writing (which would give us the date of the great countermove at New London), some of the Rogerenes of Schooley’s Mountain came into a neighboring meeting-house, bringing work and interrupting the minister. The latter statement is couched in the very words used by Miss Caulkins concerning the New London countermove of 1764-66, indicating the exact origin of this New Jersey “tradition,” which is simply in line with the erroneous accounts of historians in general—derived from repetitions and alterations of statements concerning the New London movement—which represent the Rogerenes as always and everywhere taking work into meeting-houses and interrupting the ministers.
Could any such disturbance be proven in regard to the Rogerenes of New Jersey, it would show—as a known effect of a certain cause—that they had been subjected to unbearable annoyances from members of that church, on account of their own religious persuasion, and took that method to check their enemies. But no proof of any such New Jersey molestation or defense has been presented.
Rev. Mr. Field, in his “Bi-centennial Discourse,” says the Rogerenes did not believe in the Sabbath “nor in public worship,” whereas, from the first they held as regular public meetings as any of their neighbors. Their meetings were open to friends and enemies alike, even to Mr. Saltonstall and his fellow-conspirators. They had, moreover, a regular organization with record books and clerk, proof of which is still extant in Quakertown, by a book of records written by said clerk. This erroneous statement regarding public meetings is doubtless derived from the fact that the Rogerenes, in opposition to the ecclesiastical law against meetings in private houses, persisted in holding meetings in such houses, and also to the fact that the Rogerenes held evening meetings for prayer, praise, and testimony, which were particularly for believers.[[189]]
There remain but two more principal fangs to be dealt with. One of these is a fossil which was recently revived by Mr. Blake, minister of the “First Church of Christ, of New London;” while the other is quite a new production, which the same estimable gentleman himself manufactured and circulated, through a natural desire not to be behind other ministers and historians of that church, in endeavoring to perpetuate the odium cast upon those who are reputed to have suffered strange things from some of its members in times past.
The first of these statements is that it was the custom of the Rogerenes to marry without a lawful ceremony, upon which Mr. Blake undertakes to give a description of their manner of marrying, which description is modelled after a familiar anecdote,—combined with a current statement founded on the same anecdote, to the effect that the marriage of John Rogers to Mary Ransford was a ceremony invented for the Rogerene sect by its leader, regardless of the known fact (“History of New London”) that upon his third marriage the intentions were regularly published in New London and the ceremony performed by a justice in Rhode Island. It may be seen by New London records that his son John, two years after the death of his father, was married by the Rev. Mr. Woodbridge, pastor of the Congregational church of Groton. Mr. John Bolles, the noted Rogerene leader, was married to his second wife, in 1736, by Mr. Joshua Hempstead, justice of the peace, John Rogers, 2d, taking Mr. Hempstead and Mr. Bolles over the river for that purpose. (“Hempstead Diary.”)
The New London town and church records and the “Hempstead Diary” bear full evidence that the Rogerenes of New London were married by the regular ministers or by justices of the peace, after a regular publication.
At a comparatively late date it appears that some of the Rogerenes prefer to have their marriages solemnized in their own public religious meetings on Sunday, in Quaker fashion, a form allowable by law, under condition that the marriage intentions be regularly published. The first marriage of this kind which has been discovered was recorded in 1764, by Joseph Bolles, clerk of the Rogerene Society, in a church book.
By the will of Joseph Bolles (1785), it is shown that he left a chest of Rogerene books and papers to Timothy Waterhouse of Groton. The latter probably succeeded Joseph Bolles as clerk of the Society; hence a remnant of this church book is in the Watrous family, and from it was copied the following:—