Miles Grant, Horace L. Hastings, I. B. Potter, Peter and Samuel Patro labored here; also H. K. and A. D. Flagg.
“Under the labors of Rev. A. D. Flagg, in 1870, the pastor of this church, at the age of eighteen, found Christ in personal salvation, and, with his grandfather, was immersed in Still River near Lanesville. Over thirty-five years ago, Stephen Heacock first commenced to publicly work for the Master, and for years conducted a mission in the Town Hall building.
“Between eleven and twelve years ago the speaker had the pleasure of introducing him to the Advent Christian Connecticut Conference, and on November 11th, 1897, in the Town Hall, Stephen Heacock was publicly ordained to the gospel ministry, by the speaker and his associates of the Ministerial Board of the Conference. While others have labored hard toward the spread of the Adventual faith in this section, I think, all present—yea, the entire community—will agree that largely to the self-sacrificing, heroic efforts of this man, and his wife, the success of our cause is due in this section....
“Not fulsome eulogy, but well-deserved words of praise, have I spoken here, because, from personal observation and connection, I have closely followed, and have been somewhat conversant with its history. On February 20, 1900, while President of the State Conference, I was summoned here to set this church apart in gospel order. On March 6, 1900 (in the hall on Bank Street), the church organization was duly incorporated, and, on August 6, 1901, we were present, with other clergymen, at the laying of the cornerstone. On November 14, 1901, the church was formally dedicated to the worship of God and the work of soul-winning, Rev. Henry Stone, of Wallingford, preaching the dedication sermon....
“It will, doubtless, be interesting to present a few statistics furnished us by the pastor in charge: The Advent Christian Church of New Milford was organized February 20, 1900, with thirty-two charter members. Forty members have been received since organization to date. Four deaths and two withdrawals leave the present membership sixty-six persons. The pastor, since his ordination, has celebrated nine marriages, officiated at thirty-six funerals, and baptized forty-eight persons. The total number of baptisms in this faith by various clergymen in this vicinity would aggregate one hundred fifty. Elder Heacock has preached in seventy-five different places during his ministry here, and has spoken, by invitation, in Baptist, Methodist, Congregational, and in union churches, in this vicinity. As a result of this outside work, fifty or more conversions have resulted; and, during the years in which he labored in the Gospel temperance work, prior to the establishment of the Advent Christian Mission, many people were induced to abandon the drink habit, and stand for God and the right. Only eternity will rightfully exhibit the definite results of this work in and about this village.
“Before we close the historical part of this discourse, let me call your attention to a highly interesting feature of this edifice—the church bell.
“Not only the church people, who worship here, but all the citizens of New Milford must be specially interested in the bell, which swings in this church tower, and whose presentation to this church is designed to perpetuate some facts of general interest.... Partridge Thatcher, of New Milford, was moderator of an assembly of landed proprietors, who, with himself, had been granted lands in the wilderness of Vermont. These proprietors held their first meeting in this town on May 10, 1770, at the home of Colonel Samuel Canfield, and Thatcher, acting for these men, made the first survey of Waterbury, Vt., in 1782. A lineal descendant of Samuel Canfield—in the person of Lawrence Northrop—belongs to the present membership of this church. Waterbury, Vt., stands on the banks of the Winooski River, and, on a branch of that river, named (after the original surveyor) ‘Thatcher’s Branch,’ stands the Advent Christian Church of Waterbury. In this town of Waterbury, lives an Indian gentleman, Agamenticus, or Joshua Merimam by name.... The blood of the aboriginal inhabitants—the North American Indians—flows in the veins of this beloved pastor and his wife (the former descended from the tribe of the Narragansetts, and the wife, from the warlike clan of the Pequots), and also in the veins of many of the church members who worship here. These facts came in some way to the knowledge of this Mr. Merimam, and he, in connection and with the aid of the town clerks of Waterbury, Duxbury, Middlesex, and Moretown, Vt. (adjacent communities on the banks of the Winooski River), and a Mr. Shonio, conceived the idea of presenting this church in New Milford a bell, which should not only keep green in memory the fact I have already stated, but also the memory of a historic and tragic incident of the old French and Indian War ... times, which I will now narrate.
“Over two hundred years ago, the French Catholics of Montreal erected a church for their Indian converts, and imported a bell from France, which they hung in this church tower. Soon after this, the English Colonists raided Montreal, plundered the church, seized the bell, and carried it, with many French and Indian prisoners, down the St. Lawrence River, thence via the ocean to the mouth of the Connecticut River to Deerfield, Mass., where the Indians were sold into slavery, and the bell hung in Rev. John Williams’ local church. At a point of the Winooski Valley, where are now located the four towns I have just mentioned, there was a neutral council-ground, called the Moheagans, where the Indians of the New Milford section, the Indians of Massachusetts, and the Northern tribes met annually to discuss matters of mutual interest. At one of these gatherings, the Northern Indians learned the fate of their comrades, and laid plans for a rescue. Early in 1704 three hundred Indians and a few Frenchmen, under the noted French priest, Hextel de Rouville, as leader, made a raid on Deerfield—going and coming through Waterbury, Vt. Those familiar with early Colonial history will recall what followed: the burning of Deerfield, Mass., the massacre of many of the whites, the rescue of the old bell and of the Indian captives, and the capture of more than a hundred prisoners of war. On the return march, at the junction of the Winooski River with Lake Champlain, they hid the bell till a more favorable moment. Returning in May, with one black ox, driven by a negro, one white ox, driven by a white man, and one red ox, driven by an Indian, the drivers and oxen garlanded with festoons of wild flowers, they carried the bell home to Montreal with great rejoicing, where yet it swings, so far as we know, in the same old tower as of yore. In memory of this incident, and of the friendship of the New Milford Indians, to their Northern brethren in the old Colonial days, Agamenticus of Waterbury, Vt., with his friends, the white town fathers of the old Vermont towns surveyed by the New Milford Thatcher, gave this bell to the Advent Christian church of New Milford, Conn., and christened it ‘Sansaman’ in honor of the first Indian Christian Missionary of New England, killed by King Philip of the Wampanoags in 1675....”
BY REV. JOSEPH RYAN
IN ST. FRANCIS XAVIER’S CHURCH
“To-day, my dear friends, the celebration of an important and certainly noteworthy event is taking place in this town of New Milford. With pageantry and music and speech, in gayety and festivity, with reunions of old friends and neighbors, the historic happening is receiving ample recognition and celebration. And they do well, the people of New Milford, proud of their town and its history, to recognize on such a splendid scale its two hundredth birthday. With all their ceremonies of civic and social celebration, the religious side of their town’s history has been given equal attention. Almighty God has not been forgotten—He who is the Creator and Supreme Ruler of the Universe, from whom comes all that we are and all that we have, who holds in the palm of His hand the destiny of the world and the fate of its people.