FROM THE HISTORIAN’S DESK, March 2026 – Carol Ganz.
At the February meeting it was agreed to hire Samuel Seabury, a young man of the Groton community who had recently graduated from Harvard and had not yet settled into a job. Samuel was to preach ten weeks for twenty shillings a week at three different homes. It appears that they deliberately scattered those ten services in fairness to those who would have to travel a distance. At least one might be nearby! Captain William Morgan seems to have lived near the intersection of Gallup Hill and Spicer Hill Roads, near the current high school. William Morgan, Jr., lived at what is now referred to as the Avery Homestead, near the corner of Avery Hill Road and Route 214. Ralph Stoddard, Sr., probably lived in what we now call Gales Ferry somewhere near the river on some of the grant given to his grandfather.
There were no more society meetings until early May, but we can infer that young Mr. Seabury’s Sunday services began in mid-February and continued through the month of April. What were services like? Did Samuel “preach all day” as the New London settled minister Mr. Adams was doing each Sunday? We don’t know if they brought their own benches, sat on the floor, or had some other arrangement. Even wealthy homeowners did not usually have such an array of chairs as to accommodate an entire congregation. Parishioners were generally expected to stand for the prayers. According to Alice Morse Earle, who wrote an entire book on “The Sabbath in Puritan New England,” “Dr. Lord of Norwich always made a prayer which was one hour long,” and others prayed at greater length.
Typically for churches at the time there would be a morning service, followed by a meal and an afternoon service, although we don’t know just how they were operating at this time. Were the host families expected to provide a meal, did others share in bringing food, or did each family bring along their own cold lunch? I suspect that our long heritage of sharing food began with this early church, as they had learned from their mother church in Groton and grandmother church in New London.
The Sunday gatherings were more than just a religious occasion. The service was an opportunity for couples wishing to marry to “publish” their intensions through a public announcement. Certainly, in addition to the messages and prayers, people learned of happenings locally and in the region and must have been talking over the midday meal about the prospects for a settled minister, construction of a meetinghouse and where to locate it. While the society was made up only of men, the women were an important part of the church and would have been part of the general discussion.