Records for the Second Church of Christ in Killingworth

In Connecticut in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries permission of form a new congregation was a matter of law. Permission was granted by a vote of the Colonial Legislature. With an Act of Organization the legislature established an ecclesiastical society. The society would then seek out and hire a minister to manage the affairs of the church as opposed to managing the society. The society was careful in who they hired and were quick to dismiss them if they became dissatisfied with their efforts. The society held responsibility for religious affairs, burying yards and schools. The Deacons, a position within the society, were held in high regard in these communities. For example Thankful’s father in law was always referred to as the Deacon Daniel Buell a mark of respect. Property within the societies boundaries was subject to be taxed for the support of the church and schools. Tax collectors are listed in town records as tything men a religious term. Within these societies church and state for all intents and purposes were one and the same. Since almost everybody belonged to the Congregational Church this circumstance raised few issues until well into the 1800’s. Killingworth had its origins along the seashore in what is now Clinton. By an act of the legislature the Killingworth First Society was established in 1667. As the town grew a succession of meeting houses were built to meet the growing needs of the Society. As the population expanded the only room to grow was north. By the late 1720’s North Killingworth had a substantial population. Church attendance was taken very serious in the Congregational world. In some aspects it appeared almost mandatory. To arrive late or to be absent from church could bring a fine. Northern Killingworth stretched some nine miles up from the meetinghouse. These northerners became concerned with the difficulties associated with making the weekly trip to church. Thus we see in 1728 the issue of organizing a new Society in the north being taken up in a town meeting. To divide a town into multiple Congregations was not as straightforward as it would seem. The number one issue was the tax revenue that was collected. Few societies were eager to lose the revenue that was used to support their minister and the schools among other things. So there was a fair amount of opposition to the division. By 1730 the two groups had come to some agreement based on the idea that the northerners would help with the cost of building the newest meetinghouse. With opposition mollified in 1734 the north officially petitioned the General Assembly for permission to form their own separate Society. On May 8, 1735 the General Assembly passed the act enabling the formation of the Killingworth Second Society. The first task to be taken up by the newly authorize Second Society was the hiring of a minister. The ordination of a new minister was also an affair regulated by the General Assembly. A number of ministers were assigned the task of ordaining a new minister and aiding in the establishment of any new Society. After a thorough search and a six-month trial period the new Society chose the Reverend William Seaward who was duly established in his new congregation. His ministry lasted 44 years a period that far exceed the term served by the average Congregational minister. The Reverend William Seaward plays an important role in our family’s history. He was not only the guiding light in the Second Society, playing a major part of the lives of the early Griffins, the records he produced are the only source for the identity of many of the Griffin children. The records he created provide the dates that frame our Griffin history. His style was somewhat cryptic. “Asahel son of Samuel Griffin” for example. Many record books in that time frame also included the mothers name and often a place of birth for the parents etc. Reverend Seaward’s records are organized by year. In any one year he had a separate section for births, deaths, marriages and those granted Full Communion, OC. Each year the separate categories are organized in a neat concise record with the year on the heading and the month and dates down the side. By my reading the “birth dates” are actually baptismal dates. It is not unusual to see a number of names listed next to one date. These records tell an individual’s story. Birth/baptism, parents and marriage. OC at an early or advanced age giving hints at a rebellious youth or a religious conviction at an early age. Birth of children, usually at the rate of one every two years, and death. Thankful’s obituary notes that she was a widow. We owe a debt of gratitude to the Reverend Seaward if not his detail for his thoroughness. In fact we can make several assumptions based on that idea. The families of Samuel and Thankful appear in his records they made their home in the Second Society. On the other hand the family of their brother James is absent. This would seem to indicate that he and his children raised their families in the First Society. Later town clerks copied a number of First Society records into the volumes that contained the town records and the land deeds. Thus there is some information on the Clinton families in the North Killingworth town records some of those records were subsequently lost. Their loss has proven problematic in writing the history of James’s family. Of a historical note the Reverend Seaward's name is written in some histories as Seward a more modern spelling of the name.