Date: Fri 25-Jun-1999

Publication: Bee

Author: JAN

Quick Words:

history-Sandemanian-Sandeman

Full Text:

Newtown's Sandemanians: A Once-Controversial Religious Sect

(with cut)

BY JAN HOWARD

The Congregational and Anglican churches were the dominant religions in

Newtown during the 18th century, but there were other religious groups that

began to take root here to challenge their supremacy.

A Great Awakening in 1740 sought a recall to the Calvinism and strict

Congregationalism of an earlier time. While this was welcomed by some, there

was opposition by most people. Divisions in churches occurred, with some

members leaving the established churches to join another.

One of these was the Sandemanian Society, an offshoot from the Old

Presbyterian Church of Scotland, which had its effects on Newtown for about 50

years.

In Newtown, the building in which a small society of Sandemanians met to hold

services stood midway between what is now the Hawley Manor Inn and the Middle

District school house, now a residence, probably on the site of the current

Smith-Scudder house.

The Sandemanian Society was founded by Robert Sandeman, a reformer, who was

born in Perth, Scotland in 1718 and educated at the University of Edinburgh.

Mr Sandeman was a disciple of Rev John Glas, who had led dissenters from the

Scottish church and was deposed from the Presbyterian ministry in 1728 for

teaching that the church should not be subject to any league or covenant, but

should be governed only by Apostolic doctrine.

Mr Sandeman, who was often called a religious heretic, founded the Sandemanian

Society, a sect resembling Calvinism, in 1740. He married Catharine, a

daughter of Rev Glas, and soon after became a Christian elder.

In 1760 he moved to London and gathered a congregation at Glovers' Hall,

Barbican. In 1764, Mr Sandeman came to the United States, landing in Boston.

Near the end of that year, he came to Danbury but returned to Boston, where he

soon organized a church. He then returned to Danbury where he gathered a

church in July, 1765.

He apparently corresponded with the Rev Ebenezer White of Danbury and some

other ministers in this area prior to coming here. In 1760 Rev White, the

second pastor of the First Congregational Church, became interested in the

theological ideas of Mr Sandeman and exchanged correspondence with him. Rev

David Judson of Newtown had written a guarded letter to Mr Sandeman in 1763.

The Rev Mr Zephaniah H. Smith, who served the Congregational Church of Newtown

from 1786-1790, went over to the Sandemanian faith.

In the book 250th Anniversary Year, Newtown Congregational Church , Miss Susan

Scudder is quoted: "The Rev Zephaniah H. Smith was an unfortunate choice for

Mr Smith went over to Sandemanian faith and was the cause of much trouble in

the church. He excommunicated those who did not agree with him and tried to

break up the church organization and form a Sandemanian church upon the

ruins."

The Sandemanian Tenets

Mr Sandeman's distinguishing tenets were that faith is a "mere intellectual

belief, a bare belief of the bare truth. That the bare work of Jesus Christ,

without a deed or thought on the part of man, is sufficient to present the

chief of sinners spotless before God."

He maintained that his church was the only true church. He and his followers

believed that the union of church and state was hypocritical. Their efforts to

recreate the practices of early Christians were ridiculed and incited anger

from established churches.

The Sandemanians, though few in number, were thorns in the sides of

Congregationalists because they professed to have an apostolic understanding

of Christian behavior that the Congregationalists lacked.

In Newtown, the Sandemanians contributed to loyalist strength during the

Revolution because they followed the teachings of their founder to obey all

legal authority. The size of the Sandemanian congregation in Newtown was

probably small, although exact numbers are unknown.

Newtown's loyalist sentiments were strong enough to resist the colony's

support for the Continental Congress. The town's conservative course can be

explained by its Anglican strength, which accounted for 55 percent of the

town's population, and the popularity of Anglican minister John Beach. Even in

the face of economic sanctions by Fairfield County patriots in other towns,

Newtown refused to change its position until 1778 when local patriots

installed an entire new slate of selectmen who had earlier taken the oath of

allegiance to the state.

The Sandemanians fell into two divisions, the Baptist Sandemanians, who

practiced baptism, and the Osbornites, named for their teacher, Levi Osborne,

who rejected baptism. The Osbornites seem to have been the most numerous of

the two classes and had a considerable number of members, some of whom were

influential.

It was this division that may have caused the decline of the Sandemanians in

Danbury. Most of the Baptist Sandemanians, including Levi Osborne, split from

the congregation and joined one in New York of similar beliefs, which

eventually merged into the Disciples of Christ in Danbury.

Emotional Evangelism

The Sandemanians practiced an emotional type of evangelism that drew many

members away from the more austere Congregational and Anglican churches.

Their beliefs were based on a literal interpretation of the Bible. Discipline

was a key term and the Bible was accepted as the rule-book for church

organization. The Sandemanians refused to pray with members of other

denominations because they believed they alone accurately followed the Bible.

It was a grievous sin to eat and drink with an excommunicated person.

For admission to the church, prospective members had to confess their sins and

make a public profession, before the congregation, of their faith in the

saving grace of God and their commitment to live in imitation of Jesus Christ.

The new members then received a blessing and the kiss of peace from all

present, which earned them the nickname in Danbury as the "kissites."

Each congregation was presided over by several elders, all unpaid, who held

office for life.

The Sandemanians emphasized sobriety, but did not entirely give up worldly

pleasures, such as the theater or alcohol, provided they were taken in

moderation. They did not believe in the accumulation of wealth.

In severe cases of a difference of opinion between a member of the society and

others, the dissenting member was often excommunicated.

The Sandemanians met twice a week, on Sunday and one weekday, with not less

than eight hours devoted to public worship. They practiced a weekly

celebration of the Lord's supper at which only the elders preached. Other

members would take turns offering prayers. The members would also pray and

sing, after which they would meet in a member's home for "love feasts," during

which they dined together between the morning and afternoon services.

Seated at a large table, each member was provided with a copy of the

Scriptures, which would be read and commented upon. In this service, women did

not participate, but were only spectators, though they no doubt provided the

food.

The following is from a Danbury newspaper of the time: "Their rules prohibit

games of chance, prayers at funerals, college training, as well as most

nineteenth-century innovations, while in food they are forbidden to use flesh

meat and `all things strangled.'"

In 1769, there was a Sandemanian church in Portsmouth, N.H., on what was then

called Brimstone Hill. During the organization of this church, Mr Sandeman

preached several times from the pulpit of the Rev Robert Drowne.

There was also a Sandemanian church in Taunton, Mass. in the latter part of

the 18th century, which had a sizable following but soon faded out of

existence, as did most of the Sandemanian churches. Other churches existed in

Deerfield, Mass., Newark, N.J., and Nova Scotia.

The congregation that survived the longest was the church in Danbury, but in

1901 there were only four remaining members.

In addition to Danbury and Newtown, Sandemanian churches also were formed in

Connecticut in Glastonbury, New Haven, Trumbull, and Fairfield. There were

also a few individuals in a church in Plumtrees in Bethel. The last member of

this society was "Uncle Isaac Williams," who died July 11, 1843.

Though the church in Newtown is believed to have died out around 1800, members

of the Sandemanian faith continued to live here, including Stephen Shepherd,

who died on July 24, 1830, and Isaac Peck, who died in 1844 at the age of 85.

Viewed With Mistrust

The Sandemanians were often looked upon with mistrust, especially during the

Revolution. The General Court of Connecticut at its October session in 1777

passed a "Bill granting liberty to Sandemanian Disciples to abide in the state

upon parole, or depart with their families... to any place subject to the king

of Great Britain or to New York now occupied by the said king's troops."

Following the raid on Danbury in 1777, Sandemanians were particularly suspect

because they refused to take up arms against the crown. Some fled or were

imprisoned, and their properties were often confiscated.

In 1770 Mr Sandeman wrote to his brother, telling of an attempt to drive him

away by legal prosecution.

Mr Sandeman died in Danbury on April 2, 1771 at the age of 53. He is buried in

the old Wooster Street burial ground.

(Information for this story was compiled from encyclopedias; Newtown's

Bicentennial 1705-1905 ; Bailey's History of Danbury ; Hurd's History of

Fairfield County ; Connecticut's Loyalists by Robert East; We Crown Them All

by William Devlin; Newtown Connecticut Directions and Images by the League of

Women Voters; and several individual articles.)