It’s always good to start with what you know and the Godfrey certainly knows Connecticut! Being located in the quasi central city of Middletown and having a list of contacts from all over the state, the Godfrey has had the opportunity to add many Connecticut based works to our print and digital collection. You might say that Connecticut is our specialty.
Two hundred
and twenty six years ago, on January ninth, Connecticut was admitted to the
Union which would in time become the United States of America. From colonial times, through the Revolution
to the Civil War and beyond, the Constitution State holds an important place in
American history. During the
Revolutionary War Connecticut earned the title of "Arsenal of the
Nation" and, as dubbed by General Washington, "The Provision
State" due to the incredible amount of supplies contributed to the war
effort. Some of these supplies included
Eli Whitney and Samuel North's revolutionary concept of rifles with
interchangeable parts: one of the stepping stones towards modern mass
manufacturing. The creativity and
ingenuity of Connecticut residents led to the rise of a top of the line
manufacturing industry, with important inventions like the cotton gin, steamboats,
vulcanized rubber, and submarines all having been developed here.
Compared to
the overall population only a small number of Connecticut residents make it
into history books for their valiant deeds or great minds. But one must not forget the everyday men and
women. Without them there would be no
Connecticut. The history that they
created with their everyday lives is the backbone upon which this state and
everything its people have accomplished are founded. It is also here that most people with
Connecticut ancestors must look to find their family’s place in history.
Just
because your family line does not go back to Samuel North or Katharine Hepburn,
who was born in Hartford and died in Fenwick Connecticut, does not mean your
family history is “boring”. On the
contrary, discovering your ancestor’s occupations, relations, and family
triumphs or tragedies can be more interesting than discovering your relation to
someone famous: though the second certainly gives you something to brag
about! Particularly if you are
researching your family using newspapers and church records you have a chance
of coming across compelling personal stories that give insight into their daily
lives.
While
indexing church records from Middletown Connecticut’s First Congregational
Church Godfrey staff came upon a nearly page long entry concerning Sally
Rawson. On March 30, 1816 Sally Rawson
was excommunicated from the church for reasons described as “breach of
Covenant engagements, as also by the sin of intemperance” (underline
present in original text). What follows
is a description of how members of the congregation repeatedly met and tried to
reason with Miss Rawson, to no avail.
This took place just before intemperance became a nationwide public
concern in the United States, being preached against by such people as Reverend
Lyman Beecher, father of Harriet Beecher Stowe.
Intemperance was blamed for all of society’s ills, from violence to
infidelity. Curiously, Sally Rawson is
the only case of intemperance mentioned in over one hundred years of these church
records. This begs the question: were
the claims against Sally Rawson just a convenient excuse? Taking advantage of women, especially women
without the protection of a husband, and using the church as a weapon has a
historical precedent: just look at the Salem witch trials. Could it be that Sally Rawson ran afoul of
some of the more influential congregation members and was unjustly punished? Or was she really a disagreeable woman who
drank too much and refused to answer to church authority? That mystery may never be solved.
See what I
mean? You certainly don’t need to be
related to someone famous to discover interesting, albeit sometimes scandalous,
information about your family tree!
Sources:
Middletown First
Congregational Church Records: Baptisms and Confessions 1784 to 1816, page
290. As seen on Godfrey’s Scholar+.
