New England -- Religious life and customs; New England -- Social life and customs -- To 1775; Sunday
Similar chronicles exist about other New England churches, and bear a
striking resemblance to each other. Rev. Henry Ward Beecher in an address
delivered in New York on December 20, 1853, the anniversary of the Landing
of the Pilgrims, referred to the opposition made to the introduction of
stoves into the old meeting-house in Litchfield, Connecticut, during the
ministry of his father, and gave an amusing account of the results of the
introgression. This allusion called up many reminiscences of anti-stove
wars, and a writer in the "New York Enquirer" told the same story of the
fainting woman in Litchfield meeting, who began to fan herself and at
length swooned, saying when she recovered "that the heat of the horrid
stove had caused her to faint." A correspondent of the "Cleveland Herald"
confirmed the fact that the fainting episode occurred in the Litchfield
meeting-house. The editor of the "Hartford Daily Courant" thus added his
testimony:--
"Violent opposition had been made to the introduction of a stove in the
old meeting-house, and an attempt made in vain to induce the soc
to purchase one. The writer was one of seven young men who finally
purchased a stove and requested permission to put it up in the
meeting-house on trial. After much difficulty the committee consented.
It was all arranged on Saturday afternoon, and on Sunday we took our
seats in the Bass, rather earlier than usual, to see the fun. It was a
warm November Sunday, in which the sun shone cheerfully and warmly on
the old south steps and into the naked windows. The stove stood in the
middle aisle, rather in front of the Tenor Gallery. People came in and
stared. Good old Deacon Trowbridge, one of the most simple-hearted and
worthy men of that generation, had, as Mr. Beecher says, been induced
to give up his opposition. He shook his head, however, as he felt the
heat reflected from it, and gathered up the skirts of his great
as he passed up the broad aisle to the deacon's seat. Old Uncle Noah
Stone, a wealthy farmer of the West End, who sat near, scowled and
muttered at the effects of the heat, but waited until noon to utter his
maledictions over his nut-cakes and cheese at the intermission. There
had in fact been _no fire in the stove_, the day being too warm.
We were too much upon the broad grin to be very devotional, and smiled
rather loudly at the funny things we saw. But when the editor of the
village paper, Mr. Bunce, came in (who was a believer in stoves in
churches) and with a most satisfactory air warmed his hands by the
stove, keeping the skirts of his great-coat carefully between his
knees, we could stand it no longer but dropped invisible behind the
breastwork. But the climax of the whole was (as the Cleveland man says)
when Mrs. Peck went out in the middle of the service. It was, however,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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