FROM THE HISTORIAN’S DESK, May 2004 – Carol Ganz.
Last month I told you some of what we know about women in the early church at Ledyard. As many of you know, after Rev. Jacob Johnson left in 1772, it was many years before another minister was found to settle here and re-establish the church. It is not really accurate to say that there were no services here for the entire thirty-eight years. There were sporadic attempts to settle a minister and temporary preachers were sometimes hired, but the church did eventually cease to function. Although the Ecclesiastical Society continued, and we have their records, the records of that early church disappeared. The meetinghouse apparently deteriorated over the years, although the society occasionally provided some maintenance. It was still in use in 1800, when it was voted to have half of the meetings for the year there and half at Elder Park Allyn’s meetinghouse (the Separatist church), which was closer to Gales Ferry.
In 1810 Timothy Tuttle began to preach at North Groton (Ledyard Center), although he was not ordained until the next year. On December 12, 1810, a small group re-established the church, under the authority of Rev. Walter King of Norwich, there being no ordained minister in either Congregational Church in Groton. Mr. Tuttle undertook the job of preaching at both churches and was ordained in August 1811.
Who was this small group of initial members? Robert Allyn, Anna Gallup, Priscilla Lee, Freelove Morgan and Prudence Morgan. While we have no information about why they were so few in number, we do know a bit about them.
Robert Allyn, who was in his early eighties, was the only man. His wife Hannah is the first one listed in the membership rolls as “added afterwards,” presumably before Jan. 12, 1812, the first dated entry. She was received by letter from the First Church in Groton.
Anna Gallup, by far the youngest of the group, was born Anna Smith, daughter of Nehemiah, and grew up near our present parsonage. In 1810 she was about forty-five years old, the wife of Isaac Gallup. In later years, after Isaac’s death, she married Seth Williams. When the old meetinghouse was finally replaced in 1843, the women of the church pledged money to furnish the new building, and Anna Williams’ name heads the long list. Her son, Isaac Gallup, Jr., was one of the three men on the building committee.
Priscilla (Spicer) Lee died at age 81, less than two years after participating in the newly re-organized church. Her husband Joseph joined a few months after her death.
Freelove (Hurlbutt) Morgan, about 70, and Prudence (Morgan) Morgan, about 82, both widows, had been married to the Morgan brothers Shapley and John. By the spring of 1815, all of these first members but Anna Gallup had passed on, but by then the congregation had increased by twenty-seven additional women and six more men.