[144]. No proof of refusal to pay these fines appears until a much later date.
[145]. Then said these men; We shall not find any occasion against this Daniel, except we find it against him concerning the law of his God.—Daniel 6, 5.
[146]. Viz.: by their principles of non-resistance.
[147]. This refers to the pew built for the Governor near the pulpit. Miss Caulkins (“History New London”) mentions a similar contention between prominent members of this church, under a somewhat earlier date, in which the case was carried to court for final decision.
Two of the three sons of Governor Saltonstall, Nathaniel and Gurdon, remained in New London. Rosewell, the eldest, settled in Blanford and died in 1738. Of him Mr. Hempstead says in his Diary:—“he was an Incomparable, well Disposed Gentleman, a good Christian exaplary[exaplary] in his Living orderly and good in every Relation.
Gurdon, 2d, was a leading man in New London and held numerous important offices. Mr. Hempstead calls him “Col. Saltonstall” as early as 1740. He lived in the Saltonstall homestead and marshalled his fourteen children in the family procession for church every Sunday, after the example of his father, the governor. (“History of New London.”) His eldest child, Gurdon, 3d, was born in 1734, and his second, Dudley, in 1736.
[148]. It is shown by Hempstead’s Diary that Hannah Plumb was daughter of John Plumb and baptized, as an infant, in the Congregational church, December, 1723, also that her father was a nephew of Mr. Hempstead, and her mother a daughter of Mr. Peter Harris. A son of her uncle, Peter Plumb, married a granddaughter of John Bolles.
[149]. They first settled in Morris County, N.J.—Schooley’s Mountain—but soon moved south to above location. About eleven years later, they seem to have returned to Schooley’s Mountain. In the latter part of the eighteenth century, many of these New Jersey Rogerenes are said to have removed to the “red stone country,” supposed to be Virginia. Most of them had names indicative of Groton origin, as Waterhouse, Mann, Lamb, etc., showing that other Groton people either accompanied the Culvers to New Jersey or joined them there. It would be interesting to know more of the New Jersey Rogerenes than has been discovered. Very naturally, various fabrications regarding the New London Rogerenes have become attached to them also, simply because they were of the same sect.
[150]. Upon his gravestone is inscribed:—“In memory of Abraham Weair. Died March 24, 1768, aged 85 years. Whose innocent life adorned true light.”
[151]. The following brief but explicit counsel to his followers by John Rogers, Sr., contained in one of his books, under the heading here given, is all that has been found in Rogerene writings regarding the doctrine of divine healing:—