Forgotten Voices. Carolyn Wakeman

      

      Forgotten Voices

      Forgotten Voices

      The Hidden History of a New England Meetinghouse

      Carolyn Wakeman

      Wesleyan University Press

      Middletown, Connecticut

      Wesleyan University Press

      Middletown CT 06459

       www.wesleyan.edu/wespress

      © 2019 Carolyn Wakeman

      All rights reserved

      Manufactured in the United States of America

      Designed by David Wolfram

      Typeset in Adobe Garamond Pro, ITC Franklin Gothic

      Library of Congress Control Number: 2019949472

      Paperback ISBN: 978-0-8195-7923-2

      Ebook ISBN: 978-0-8195-7924-9

      5 4 3 2 1

      Front cover photo ‘Church at Old Lyme Connecticut,’ oil on canvas, by the American painter Childe Hassam. Courtesy of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery.

      Contents

Preface: New Light on Old Stories	vii
Acknowledgments	xi
1 Meeting Together	1
2 Debate and Delay	9
3 Gathering a Church	18
4 Opinion on Blasphemy	21
5 On Elderly Childbearing	25
6 Lessons from a Wayward Son	29
7 Finding a Successor	35
8 Oxford and Temperance	44
9 A Dark House	47
10 Confessions	51
11 The Minister’s Wife	57
12 Out of Darkness	61
13 Great Danger	67
14 Scandalous Reports	75
15 Difficulties among Ourselves	79
16 Slavery or Independence	85
17 Revolutionary Chaplain	91
18 Invitations	99
19 Silver Tankard	105
20 Architecture and Adornment	111
21 Women Gathering	119
22 Revivals	125