MILFORD CEMETERY. BY M. LOUISE GREENE. A MONG the men of ye olden time whose force and character shaped not only the destinies of the town but of the state, the sermons on these stones have for their text many names, and prominent among them are those of Robert Treat and Jonathan Law. Attracted by Mr. Prudden's character and preaching, Robert Treat left the Wethersfield settlement to follow the minister to Milford. A young surveyor, he found his services in great demand in the new settlement. The "piety, integrity, wisdom, firmness and courage " which so long endeared him to his townsmen quickly manifested themselves. He was admitted a freeman and rose rapidly in both civil and military service. He served as justice of the peace, 1645, as delegate to New Haven General Court, as Deputy and, from 1659 to 1663, as magistrate for Milford. In 1683 he was governor of Connecticut. Clear-sighted as to the dangers threatening the ecclesiastic republic of New Haven, he urged Milford's secession from her jurisdiction and union with the powerful Hartford settlement. So great was his influence that he carried his town into the Connecticut commonwealth,not in unwilling submission to the enlarged franchise but as a voluntary applicant for membership. This membership marked the great change which the first forty years of colonial life had wrought in men's views of church and state. The severe tests of the earlier day II. for admission to the churches, requiring a rigorous examination and a public and personal narration of the history of one's conversion, was largely giving way to the Half-Way Covenant practice, that is, to the admission to a restricted church membership of those of moral life who had been baptized in infancy. In Connecticut, men had decided that government should be in the hands of the majority and no longer be centered in the exceedingly small minority who could so account for themselves as to be acceptable to the churches for full privileges of membership, including that highest one of communion at the Lord's table. Meanwhile the Indian dangers had developed Robert Treat's military abilities. He was appointed Captain in 1662, Major in 1670 and Colonel in 1674. The following year, he was sent with the Connecticut troops to Westfield and was present at the attack on Springfield, September 16th. He drove back the Indians in their assault on Hadley. At the famous swamp fight in the Narrangansett country he led the Connecticut soldiers, following the Plymouth men under General Winslow. Both town and colony rewarded his services with large grants of land. To return to his civil honors, he was elected deputy governor of Connecticut, 1676-1682, and from 1683 to 1698 served as chief executive of the colony. Refusing further election, he was continued in the office of deputy governor until his death in 1710. 486 His Milford home was on Governor's She died April 8, 1703. The Governor's second wife was widow Elizabeth Bryan, whom he married October 22, 1705. She died January, 1706. Governor Jonathan Law's laurels were of the civic order. Born August 16, 1674, he graduated from Harvard 1695, and three years later began the practice of law in Milford. He early made a reputation by his judicial decisions and by his oratory. At thirty he had risen to be chief justice. He was assistant in 1717, and through the deputy-governor's office rose to the gubernatorial chair. That he filled from 1741 to 1750, dying in office. Governor Law's residence was destroyed a few years ago to make room for a new house on River Street, nearly on a line with the Town Hall. Governor Law had to deal with the vexing questions of church and state which rose out of the controversy between the Old and New Light parties in the churches and the resultant changes through ecclesiastical legislation both bad and good until the revision of the colony laws in 1750 and, again later, brought a larger toleration for those outside the Congregational pale. Of clergymen who here rest from their labors, the second, third, fourth and seventh pastors of the First Church and the first of Plymouth or the Second Church should receive mention even in so brief a sketch as this. In the two hundred and sixty years of its existence, the First Church has been pastorless only fifteen years and four of these followed the death of its founder and leader, Rev. Peter Prudden. The average pastorate has been seventeen years, yet Roger Newton was pastor twenty-three years, Samuel Andrews fifty-two years, Rev. Samuel Whittlesey, thirty-one years, and Rev. Bezaliel Pinneo forty-four years. first pastor was of English birth and education though finishing his college course at Harvard and his theological studies with his father-in-law, Doctor Hooker of Hartford. A specific note records that he "was ordained Pastour, with praier and fasting, and ye laying on of ye hands of Zach. Whitman, Elder, John Fletcher, Deacon and Mr. Rob. Treat magistrate, though not as magistrate and Deacon, but as appointed by ye church to joyne with ye Ruling elder in laying on hands in ye THE GOVERNOR LAW HOUSE. |