the church of Southington. But through the severity of the day, and high winds, blowing the snow and filling up the paths, only two churches and three ministers were convened to-day, and it was deferred till to-morrow. This afternoon, however, we formed and examined Mr. Robinson, the Pastor elect; and the church committee laid before us their transactions and votes respecting his call. In the evening Mr. Newell arrived; having been all day in coming seven miles, and forty men employed in opening the ways. Next day arrived Mr. Pitkin and Mr. Gillet; the latter came part of the way on snow-shoes. The Council this evening allotted the parts, and voted to proceed to ordination to-morrow. "Jan. 13. This day the ordination of the Rev. William Robinson, late Senior Tutor of Yale College, was attended; a very large congregation assembled on the occasion. "Extract of Result of Council. 66 At a meeting of an Ecclesiastical Council of Elders and Delegates of the Churches of Christ, convened at Southington, January 12, 1780: "Elders present: Rev. Dr. Stiles, President of Yale College. Rev. Samuel Newell, Pastor of the Church in New Cambridge. Rev. Timothy Pitkin, Pastor of the Church in Farmington. Rev. John Foot, Pastor of the Church in N. Cheshire. Rev. Alexander Gillet, Pastor of the Church in Farmingbury. Rev. Benoni Upson, Pastor of the Church in Kensington. "Delegates present: Deac. Stephen Hotchkiss, from Church in N. Cambridge. Deac. Seth Lee, from Church in Farmington. Deac. Samuel Beach, from Church in N. Cheshire. Brig. Gen. Seth Hart, from Church in Kensington. "Dr. Stiles was chosen Moderator, and Mr. Foot and Gen. Hart were chosen Scribes. "Mr. Upson made the first prayer; then I preached on * Dr. Stiles and Messrs. Foot and Upson. 1 Tim. iv. 14-16. Mr. Foot made the ordaining prayer, during the imposition of the hands of the Presbytery. Mr. Newell gave the charge. Mr. Pitkin made the concluding prayer; and Mr. Foot gave the right hand of fellowship. These, with Mr. Gillet, laid on hands. Hands were not laid on during the charge, according to custom lately in some of the Consociations; though this Council was not a consociated Council, but one elected at large. Three Psalms were sung in Dr. Watts' version. I was two hours in sermon. We began about eleven, and finished at three o'clock; nearly four hours in service. A very decent, crowded, and attentive auditory. The whole was performed with a serious solemnity. "The Council dined at Mr. Root's. After dinner, as Moderator, I concluded, as I had begun the Council, with prayer; and dissolved it. "Jan. 14. Very blustering. Visited the venerable and aged, the Rev. Mr. Curtiss, t. 80 et supra, the first Pastor of the church in Southington, who resigned the ministry about twenty years ago. He attended the ordination with entire satisfaction, and dined with the Council.-Visited also Rev. Mr. Chapman, dismissed five or six years since from the pastoral charge of the church. "Jan. 16. Lord's day. I preached all day for Mr. Robinson, A. M. Rom. v. 21; P. M. 1 Thess. ii. 19, 20. After sermon Mr. Robinson performed a baptism. "Jan. 18. Returned to New Haven. Snow very deep." years. Thus was Mr. Robinson introduced to a sphere of active life and duty, in which he continued for more than forty-one He found a home, in which the whole of his after life was passed; and his ashes, with those of many members of his large family, now repose in the public cemetery upon the hill, surrounded by the numerous graves of his parishioners. The circumstances of his settlement were auspicious. He *The good President is here a little at fault. Mr. Curtiss died in 1795, aged eighty-eight years. At this time, of course, he was seventy-three years of age. More nearly, twenty-five years. was now in the twenty-sixth year of his age; the people of his charge were united in their respect and affection for him; and they had pledged to him what he regarded as "a handsome and generous" support. But the first ten years of his ministry were shrouded with heavy domestic afflictions; and the restoration of peace and the consequent change of circumstances rendered his income inadequate for the support of his family. Hence a new direction was given to his efforts; one which he himself had never foreseen. Instead of the habits of a secluded student, he acquired those of an active business life. As to his salary, however small it may now appear, (and it was never increased,) he was at the time probably at least on an equality with most of his brethren settled round about him. His grandfather had been settled on sixty pounds; and Dr. Bellamy, in 1769, had fixed the amount of his own salary at eighty pounds. In 1758 Dr. Smalley was installed in New Britain on a salary of fifty pounds and wood, with a settlement of one hundred and fifty pounds; but in 1763 his salary was increased to ninety pounds. Dr. Strong, of Hartford, had By the terms of his con one hundred and thirty pounds. *Porter's Histor. Discourse on Farmington, pp. 39, 67. SECTION III. FIRST HALF O F HIS MINISTRY. 1780-1800. THE professional life of Mr. Robinson, after his settlement at Southington, may be considered in two parts; the first extending over about twenty-one years, and ending with the last century; the other beginning with the present century, and embracing the remainder of his ministry until his dismission. The materials for an account of the first portion are exceedingly scanty; as are also those in respect to the last, excepting the recollections of his family and a few surviving friends, over which are already spread the deepening shadows of from thirty to almost sixty years. During his previous visits to Southington, Mr. Robinson had made his home in the house of Deac. Timothy Clark, who lived a mile west of the meeting-house, on West street, so called. After his ordination he continued to be an inmate of the same family, until ready to set up housekeeping for himself. About a month after his ordination, Mr. Robinson was married, by the Rev. Mr. Perry, February 8, 1780, to Miss Naomi Wolcott of East Windsor, to whom allusion has already been made; and to whom he had now been engaged during five or six years. She was the daughter of Capt. Gideon Wolcott and Naomi Olmstead his second wife, and was born Sept. 28, 1754. She still remained for some weeks at her own home in the family of her brother; and did not remove * For some account of the Wolcott family, see Appendix D. to Southington until the latter part of April. Mr. Robinson rented a house standing on the west side of Queen street, so called, about a mile and three quarters north of the meetinghouse, at the north end of the remaining part of the former twenty-rod highway, which ran over the burying-ground hill. The house was afterwards occupied for many years by Nathanael Jones. Here the newly married couple began their housekeeping with pleasing hopes; which however were destined to be fleeting, It is difficult at the present day to realize the economy and shifts, which our fathers and mothers were compelled to practise in their household affairs, especially about the close of the revolutionary war. One specimen may here suffice. In a letter which Mr. Robinson wrote to his wife while she yet remained at her home, dated April 5, 1780, occurs this passage: "I have purchased of Mr. Trowbridge a clock, brass kettle, iron pot, coffee mill, pair of flats, pair of brass candlesticks, brass andirons, and looking-glass; so I hope we shall be able, upon the whole, to set up housekeeping with some little decency." In a postscript he adds: "A warming-pan I can borrow for the next winter." The warming-pan would seem to have been a matter of previous discussion; for in a letter to her husband of the same date, and which must have crossed his on the road, the lady, who apparently had a mind of her own, writes curtly: "I have purchased a warming-pan." Such too was then the depreciated state of the continental currency, that the prices paid for various articles now seem absolutely fabulous. In the letters which passed in 1779, it is mentioned, that a fine piece of satin might be obtained at fifty-six dollars the yard. Cider at the same time was from twenty to thirty dollars the barrel. In February, 1780, Mr. Robinson bought ten and a half bushels of wheat for four hundred and twenty dollars, or forty dollars the bushel. At the same time oats were sold at ten dollars the bushel, and flax at five dollars the pound. Mrs. Robinson brought with her to Southington, as a do |
