A Brief History of the Stone Church & Meetinghouse
of the First Ecclesiastical Society of New Preston for the Bicentennial Picnic
by Stephen Bartkus, 7/13/2024
Thank you for joining us today to celebrate the 200th Anniversary of the Stone Church & Meetinghouse of the First Ecclesiastical Society of New Preston. This historic building has stood as a beacon of faith, community, and resilience for two centuries, bearing witness to the passage of time and the enduring spirit of our community.
The story of this place starts 10,000 years ago with the First Peoples who lived on this land at the end of the last glacial period. Water was everywhere as the glaciers melted and the shoreline of Lake Waramaug was ten feet above its present level. The Native Americans who lived for thousands of years in this area were known as the Pootatuck, and Chief Waramaug was their leader. He compromised with the European colonists, who began arriving here around the year 1700, in the hopes of protecting his people and their way of life.
In 1702 the first deed was signed between the Native Americans and Colonists for the sale of Weantinock Plantation which later became the town New Milford in 1712. This area was a vast wilderness and the last frontier of Connecticut.
In 1722 a group of New Milford men set their sights on the land immediately to the north of New Milford, around 12 square miles where we are today, and they purchased it from land agents who represented the towns of Hartford and Windsor. This became known as the New Milford North Purchase. In the early 1740s a group of men by the names of Cogswell, Averill, and Kinne from the town of Preston, located in eastern Connecticut, began purchasing lots here and named their new village “New” Preston. New Preston was part of the town of New Milford until 1779, when the village of Judea in Woodbury merged with the village of New Preston in New Milford to form the new town of Washington. Washington was the first town established in Connecticut after the signing of the Declaration of Independence and was named after General George Washington.
In the American colonial period, many elements were required to establish a town, most importantly, a church with a minister had to be formed and was known as an “Ecclesiastical Society”. The separation of church and state was not yet implemented, and everyone was required to attend services and the church collected taxes to build schools, roads, bridges. The early towns were spread out over thousands of acres with only one church and one minister. This meant that the residents often had to travel great distances on Sunday to fulfill their obligations, regardless of weather and hardships. It was because of this inconvenience that over time, smaller parishes were carved out of the wilderness and more churches were built and ministers hired. This practice led to the separation of these parishes from the original town and the creation of new smaller and more manageable towns.
Following a petition of the residents of New Preston in 1752, who no longer wanted to travel to New Milford Green every Sunday to worship, the Ecclesiastical Society of New Preston was established in 1753, and the following year, the first meeting house, a small log cabin, was erected a few hundred feet to the west of the present Stone Church. This early structure was replaced in 1766 by a more substantial wood framed building on the site of the present Stone Church, an important crossroads on the way to New York.
The early 19th century was a period of prosperity for the farming community around New Preston Hill, which inspired parishioners to undertake the ambitious project of building the current stone church for $3,660.20. Completed in 1824, this church was designed by Theodore Cadwell of Windsor and Leman Ackley of New Preston, and constructed by members of the Camp Family, among others, whose craftsmanship reflected the high standards of Connecticut's country builders of the time. The exterior walls are made of gray gneiss laid in a random formation. Marble elements, like the windowsills and lintels, quarried locally in the nearby village of Marbledale were also incorporated in the construction of the church. Marble is a metamorphic stone that was transformed by great heat and pressure from calcium-based sands and the fossils of ancient creatures that lived in the prehistoric ocean which once was located here. There was a vast marble quarrying, sawing and carving industry in Marbledale from around 1800-1850.
This church is notable for being one of the few stone meetinghouses in Connecticut. It features a unique architectural arrangement where the pulpit, where I'm standing, is adjacent to the vestibule wall, with the pews facing the front doors. Meaning, anyone arriving late to church services had to face the entire congregation!
According to J. Frederick Kelly, a leading scholar on Connecticut meetinghouses, this is the only remaining example of this type. The church is a rare illustration of Federal-period stone architecture in Connecticut. Its robust stone walls and elegant steeple have become an iconic feature of the New Preston Hill Historic District, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.
Rev. Noah Wadhams was the first settled minister in 1757 (1757-68), then Rev. Jeremiah Day (1770-1806), then Rev. Samuel Whittlesey (1807-17), Rev. Charles Boardman (1818-38), Rev. Benjmain Parsons (1838-?), Rev. Austin Isham(?), Rev. Horace Bushnell(?), Rev. Evan Evans (1894-98 and 1907-35), and others.
The dedication sermon for the stone church was delivered here by Rev. Boardman on January 19, 1825, and Jerimiah Day, President of Yale College and son of the former minister Rev. Jeremiah Day participated in the ceremony.
As the 19th century progressed, the industrial revolution brought significant changes. New Preston Village, located a mile to the east, began to flourish due to its waterpower resources, with 21 mills along the East Aspetuck River. In response, the congregation built a new more convenient church there on Church Street in 1853.
The Stone Church remained with the minority who continued to use it for worship. After the retirement of Rev. Evans in 1936 the Stone Church was primarily used for summer services. Weddings and community cultural events continue to take place here today.
The Stone Church has been a sentinel on top of New Preston Hill and has witnessed much triumph and tragedy, locally and nationally, for the past two centuries: from the hundreds of baptisms, weddings, and funerals of town residents; to the rise and fall of the marble, iron, manufacturing industry in New Preston, to the horrible axe murder of 12 year old Ferris Beardsley on New Preston Hill in 1835 and the murder suicide of Egbert and Jennie Cogswell in 1879; A Small Pox Epidemic that quarantined New Preston in 1831, the Flu of 1918 that claimed nine residents, and the Covid Pandemic of 2020; The loss of three young men of the church who died from “Panama Fever” on their way to the California Gold Rush in the 1850s; The great blizzards of 1888 and 1978 that buried the state under many feet of snow and the major floods and hurricanes of 1938 and 1955 that toppled dozens of church steeples in Connecticut; The assassination of four Presidents of the United States, a Civil War, two World Wars, and the fall of the Twin Towers on 9/11; The end of slavery, women gaining the right to vote, man landing on the moon, the election of our country's first black president, and the legalization of same sex marriage; And the inventions of photography, sewing machines, the lightbulb, electricity, telephone, automobile, radio, television, air plane, space ship, nuclear bomb, computers, internet, mobile phones, email, social media, and indoor plumbing, something that is still authentically absent here!
The rural charm of New Preston Hill and the Stone Church have been remarkably preserved despite incredible change in the world over the past two centuries. The area still features open fields with cows, stone walls, and unpaved roads, maintaining the historic ambiance of an early 19th-century village. The Stone Church itself stands as a poignant reminder of simpler times and is a touchstone to our past.
Today, as we celebrate 200 years of the Stone Church, we honor the legacy of those who built and maintained this sacred space. Their commitment to faith and community has provided a solid foundation upon which we continue to build. As we look to the future, we are inspired by their example to nurture and preserve this historic landmark for generations to come.
I'd like to end with Rev. Boardman's actual final words at the dedication of the Stone Church 200 years ago: “And let us go, brethren, and fulfil all the duties, which the prospects of this day, disclose; cheered by the hope, that, when our days of toil and anxiety are past, and we sleep in the dust of the earth; that a generation shall here bow before God, with a deeper humility, and sing his praises with a loftier elevation of faith and hope, and gratitude, than we have ever felt; that revivals of religion, embracing in the salvation which they bring, these dear objects of our solicitude; more extensive in their range, and happier in their influence, than any which we have been permitted to witness, may here prevail, and, reaching down to the last hour of time, here, unite the praises of earth, with the hallelujahs of heaven. Amen.”