PAUL C. BOWERS, JR.
GOODWIN F. BERQUIST, JR.
Worthington, Ohio: James Kilbourn's
Episcopal Haven on the Western
Frontier
One of the most significant developments
to occur in this country in
the aftermath of the American Revolution
was the settlement of the
old Northwest Territory beyond the Ohio
River. Families from the
Atlantic states streamed west in
ever-increasing droves, establishing
countless new communities in the region
now occupied by the states
of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, and
Illinois. Among these new towns and
villages was Worthington, Ohio, an
Episcopal haven founded by
James Kilbourn on the western frontier.
On the morning of September 23, 1786, a
fifteen-year-old boy
walked away from his father's farm in
the bleak "dead swamp
woods" section of central
Connecticut hard by the east side of
Farmington Mountain. James Kilbourn's
father, Josiah, had suffered
severe financial losses during the
American Revolution.1 Economic
dislocation brought on by the events of
eight years of war was
exacerbated by soil exhaustion and, in
the case of Kilbourn, a
burgeoning family of seven children, six
of whom lived at home.2 In
1. James Shepard, History of St.
Mark's Church (New Britain, Connecticut, 1907),
183.
2. Oscar Zeichner states that a
"very high birth rate increased the population by
more than fifty thousand between 1762
and 1774, and made Connecticut the second
most densely populated colony in New
England on the eve of the Revolution. At the
same time thousands of its inhabitants
moved out of the colony at a phenomenal pace
in the hope of finding more and better
land in other provinces." Oscar Zeichner, Con-
necticut's Years of Controversy, 1750-1776 (Chapel Hill, 1949), 144. Albert Laverne
Olson, Agricultural Economy and the
Population in Eighteenth-Century Connecticut,
Tercentenary Commission of the State of
Connecticut, Committee on Historical Publi-
cations XL (New Haven, 1935), 7-31;
William T. Utter, Granville: The Story of an Ohio
Village (Granville, 1956), 23-25; The Heritage of Granby,
1786-1965: Its Founding and
History (n.p.: The Salmon Brook Historical Society, 1967), 161;
Transactions of the
Society for Promoting Agriculture in
the State of Connecticut, American
Imprint
Series, Second Series, Evans no. 2081
(New Haven, 1802). In his diary, Joel Buttles, a
nigrant to Worthington in 1804 and an
ardent student of agriculture, observed that in
he Granby, Connecticut area "the
whole country is poor land, always poor but in
addition to that it has been worn out
long ago"; The Papers of Joel Buttles, Archives of
he Trinity Episcopal Church, Columbus,
Ohio.
248 OHIO HISTORY |
|
April 1783 Josiah Kilbourn moved his family for the third time in ten years. Each move was to a smaller, poorer parcel of land, undertaken always in the hope that things would soon be better. Instead conditions worsened until at last in September of 1786, Kilbourr advised his son to leave home and make his own way in the world. In his autobiography, James Kilbourn later recalled how utterly hopeless his plight appeared: "In the autumn of 1786, by my father's suggestion I left home to assume self-direction, poorly clad fo summer and no winter clothing, illiterate, reading only tolerably without practice in spelling or any knowledge of grammar, or o writing that could be read." As he wandered some thirty mile northward, Kilbourn reflected upon his "gloomy prospects." "I cam to the conclusion that two things in particular were indispensable fo me, viz., to establish the reputation of a first-rate hand to work, wit perfect integrity in every trust, and to get learning. For the latter had neither money nor time, during the hours of labor and chore doing. It must therefore be acquired by my own application, an |
Worthington, Ohio
249
mainly while others slept."3 Kilbourn's
memory may have been
colored by the eminent success he had
gained by the time he wrote
his autobiography, but the young man's
career following that long
walk attests to his energy, ingenuity,
and determination. Hard work,
integrity, and dedication to education,
combined with a later
commitment to the Protestant Episcopal
Church, were the principal
guidelines of his life and ultimately
enabled him to conceive and carry
out his dream of a new community in the
West, a haven for
Episcopalians in the "howling
wilderness" of the Ohio country.4
On the second day after he left his
father's home, Kilbourn was
hired as a summer field hand.5 Soon
after, he bound himself out for
four years as an apprentice clothier at
Tariffville, a village nearby on
the Farmington River. His duties
involved assisting his employer in
the dyeing of linen and cotton cloth. A
newspaper advertisement for a
position like his, printed in the Hartford
Courant about that time,
stressed "an Active Boy of good
reputation, about 12 to 14 years of
age."6 For five months of the year
thereafter, Kilbourn "earned for
himself such wages as he could" on
the Simsbury farm of Elisha
Griswold; in the remaining seven months
he worked as an apprentice,
receiving no compensation other than
board and the opportunity to
learn a trade.7
The three years Kilbourn spent with the
Griswolds were immensely
important in his development from a
virtually illiterate farm hand to a
rising business and community leader.
Kilbourn was greatly fortunate
in forming a close friendship with
Alexander Viets Griswold, the
second son of his employer, who was four
years his senior. Tutored
by his uncle, the Reverend Roger Viets,
one of the most energetic and
able Episcopal clergymen in the state,
Alexander Griswold himself
became a champion of the Episcopal
Church after 1795 and
3. James Kilbourn, "Autobiography
of Col. James Kilbourn of Worthington, Ohio,"
The Old Northwest Genealogical
Quarterly, VI (October 1903), 111-12.
Kilbourn's
name is variously spelled in both
printed and manuscript sources. As he himself usually
spelled it "Kilbourn" that is
the form used in the text of this article. Variant spellings
will be retained in all citations.
4. A contemporary reference to Ohio as a
"howling wilderness" appears in a letter
from Lucy Fitch, Kilbourn's
mother-in-law, to Kilbourn and his wife; see Mrs. Lucy
Fitch to James and Lucy Kilbourn,
Hartland, May 9, 1804, The Papers of James Kil-
bourn, The Ohio Historical Society.
"A hideous, howling wilderness" was also the first
known description of Kent in the
northwest corner of Connecticut in 1694. Charles S.
Grant, Democracy in the Connecticut
Frontier Town of Kent (New York, 1961), 3.
5. Worthington historian Frank Corbin
states that Kilbourn was initially employed as
a laborer on the farm of Eli Young of
Granby; Frank Corbin, "The Birth of Our
Town," The Worthington News, May
22, 1975, IB.
6. Hartford Courant, February 16, 1789.
7. Shepard, History of St. Mark's Church 183
250 OHIO HISTORY
eventually served as Chancellor of Brown
University and Presiding
Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal
Church of the United States.
Observing Kilbourn's off-hours struggle
at self-education, young
Griswold offered his services in the
project to "get learning."
Together the two "appropriated
invariably half of every night to that
object."8 Griswold
tutored Kilbourn in Latin, Greek, English
grammar, arithmetic, and other branches
of "useful knowledge."
These productive learning sessions and
the generosity of Griswold
made a deep and lasting impression on
Kilbourn. Nothing, he later
wrote in his autobiography, "gives
me greater pleasure than
occurences which render it suitable for
me to declare this debt of
gratitude which I owed to that great and
excellent man while living,
nor less to his memory, now that he has
gone to the bosom of his
God; a debt I can never pay but in the
heart's warm devotion."9
James Kilbourn's resolution to better
himself was not confined to
the sphere of education. His driving
ambition and industry soon
launched him on a remarkable business
career. He did not, in fact,
complete his apprenticeship at the
Tariffville clothier's. Rather, when
his employer became over-burdened with
work in October 1789,
Kilbourn took "full charge" of
the establishment.10 Confident now of
a comfortable future, he married Lucy
Fitch, daughter of John Fitch,
inventor of the steamboat. The ceremony
took place at St. Andrew's
Episcopal Church, Bloomfield. Within
three years Kilbourn owned
three clothing works, the one at
Tariffville and two new ones at
Granby and Avon. With some of his profits,
Kilbourn re-purchased
the Farmington homestead his struggling
parents had recently
mortgaged.11
In 1793 Kilbourn became seriously ill
from inhaling the fumes of
poisonous dyes. He moved from Simsbury
to Farmington and for
8. Griswold "read everything within
reach, and when his days were crowded with
toil, from a very early age he would
pass the great part of the night in reading, while the
rest of the family slept." Julia C.
Emery, "Alexander Viets Griswold and the Eastern
Diocese," Soldier and Servant
Series (Hartford, n.d.), 7.
9. The Heritage of Granby, 164; Kilbourn, "Autobiography," 112-13.
10. In all likelihood Kilbourn received
his apprenticeship with the Tariffville clothier
through the influence of the Griswold
family. Roger Griswold, Alexander's brother,
constructed the mill at Tariffville in
which members of the Griswold family "were heav-
ily interested financially." Glenn
E. Griswold, comp., The Griswold Family:
England-America (Rutland, Vermont, 1943), 106. The clothing
establishment was one
of several industries at the mill.
11. Albert C. Bates, comp.,
"Records of the Rev. Roger Viets, Rector of St. An-
drews, Simsbury, Ct., and Missionary
from the Society for the Propagation of the Gos-
pel in Foreign Parts, 1763-1800," Early
Anglicanism in Connecticut: Materials on the
Missionary Career of Roger Viets,
Samuel Seabury's Communion Office, and Aids for
Scholarly Research, ed. by Kenneth W. Cameron (Hartford, 1962), passim; Kilbourn,
"Autobiography," 113-14.
Worthington, Ohio
251
eighteen months was able to get about
only on crutches. A less
determined man might well have faltered,
but not Kilbourn. In 1795
he sold his clothing works and turned to
new fields. After trying
farming for a year (he found he
"could not stand the labor and
exposure"), he began a second, even
more prosperous business
career. 12
About 1797 Kilbourn moved to Granby, a
new town formerly part
of north Simsbury. Here he established a
store, and, soon after, a
tavern similar to one his brother Lemuel
had owned in the area in
1775. James Kilbourn continued to expand
his enterprises by the
purchase of a saw mill and four new
farms for rental income. By the
year 1800, he had become, in his own
words, "what in Granby was
deemed wealthy."13
Kilbourn's reputation for industry and
integrity manifested itself in
other ways. For example, he
"originated and successfully carried
through the turnpike road from Hartford
to Albany . . . formed and
conducted two literary societies;
established a public library; was
assessor of town taxes" and was
frequently asked to speak to adult
study groups. Yet even these varied
activities were insufficient to
keep him occupied. As he later
reflected, "I had declined all the little
offices that were offered, except the
management of the fiscal
concerns in the Episcopal Church and
lister and assessor of taxable
property."14
James Kilbourn's conversion to the
Protestant Episcopal faith had
a major impact upon his life and, as
shall later be shown, upon the
settlement of frontier Worthington.
Apparently he gained his first
knowledge of the Episcopal Church
through Alexander Griswold.
While recuperating from his long
illness, Kilbourn "found time to
prosecute his researches after truth and
knowledge, giving no small
share of attention to theology and
ecclesiastical history." Able to
travel at last, he made several visits
to Griswold's first parish, some
12. Shepard, History of St. Mark's
Church, 184-85; Kilbourn, "Autobiography,"
113.
13. Kilbourn's name first appears in the
town records of Granby, December 1797.
Granby Town Records, Town Meetings, vol.
I, 50, Granby Town Hall, Granby, Con-
necticut. Kilbourn,
"Autobiography," 114; The Heritage of Granby, 141-52; Deed of
Sale, from Amasa Kilbourn to James
Kilbourn, May 6, 1801, Granby Town Records,
Book of Deeds, vol. V, 53, Granby Town Hall, Granby, Connecticut.
14. Shepard, History of St. Mark's
Church, 185; Kilbourn, "Autobiography," 114.
According to Granby town records for the
period 1797 to 1800, major offices were held
by a few families. Kilbourn himself was
not a member of the ruling clique despite his
prosperity. Between 1797 and 1800 the
only town offices he held were tax assessor and
grandjuryman. Granby Town Records, Town
Meetings, vol. I, passim.
252 OHIO HISTORY
twenty-five miles west of his parents'
home at Farmington. The
former relationship of teacher and pupil
was readily renewed.15
Episcopal church records reveal that
Kilbourn was serving as an
alternate preacher and lay reader at
Christ Church, Newington, as
early as December 1800. His parish was
known as Wethersfield and
Worthington and served Episcopalians in
the Berlin-Farmington
area.16 Simultaneously he
served as church treasurer for St. Peter's
mission church in Granby. On January 24,
1802, James Kilbourn was
officially inducted into the Episcopal
Church as a deacon.
Customarily a period of at least two
years' candidacy precedes such
office; therefore it seems likely
Kilbourn's initial experience as a lay
reader began about January 1800.17
Kilbourn's Berlin congregation liked
him. In a letter addressed to
Bishop Abraham Jarvis at Cheshire
December 7, 1801, church leaders
urged his retention: "We recommend
unto thee the very amiable and
pious Mr. James Kilbourn who has
preached with us alternately for
the year passed, to the universal
satisfaction of his hearers." The
request that Kilbourn be allowed to
continue his work in the parish
was termed the "unanimous
view" of the congregation. Eighteen
months later the same leaders pleaded
for the Bishop's permission to
allow Kilbourn "to take a journey
into the northwestern terri-
tory . . . We could all wish to be sure
Mr. Kilbourn did not wish to
take this journey, but inasmuch as he
does we ought to and do hereby
certify that it is no more than agreed
upon at the time we made our
contract with him which on the part of
Mr. Kilbourn has been
observed with honor."18
15. Shepard, History of St. Mark's
Church, 185. According to Kenneth W. Came-
ron, Archivist and Historiographer of
the Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut, confirma-
tion in the Episcopal Church in America
prior to 1789 was impossible for most Ameri-
cans because they had no access to a
bishop. This condition explains why no record
exists of the precise date when Kilbourn
joined the Protestant Episcopal Church. Had
he become a convert prior to 1789, there
would probably be no record of confirmation.
Kenneth W. Cameron to Goodwin F.
Berquist, Jr., November 10, 1975.
16. It would be tempting to conclude
that Worthington, Ohio, was named after Kil-
bourn's first parish. However, in a
letter he wrote in 1804, James Kilbourn makes it
clear that the new Ohio settlement was
named in honor of Colonel Thomas Worth-
ington of Chillicothe. James Kilbourn to
Thomas Worthington, February 7, 1804, Kil-
bourn Papers.
17. Shepard, History of St. Mark's
Church, 186; George Burgess, ed., "List of Per-
sons Admitted to the Order of Deacons of
the Protestant Episcopal Church of the
United States of America from A.D. 1785
to A.D. 1837, Both Inclusive," Early
Anglicanism in Connecticut, 6; Daniel B. Stevick, Canon Law, A Handbook (New
York, 1965), 180-95; Kilbourn, "Autobiography,"
114.
18. John Goodrich, Jonathan Gilbert et
al. to Right Rev'd Abraham Jarvis D.D.,
Bishop of Connecticut, December 7, 1801,
John Goodrich and Jonathan Gilbert to
Right Rev'd. [Abraham] Jarvis, July 29,
1802, Kilbourn Papers.
Worthington, Ohio
253
Being an Episcopalian in Connecticut in
1800 meant being part of a
small band of religious dissenters.19 Until
1727, Connecticut law
stipulated that all citizens, whatever
their religious preference, must
pay taxes to support the established
state church. In this case, that
meant the Congregational Church.
Initially, Episcopalians were
consigned to second-class citizenship
because the political affairs of
the state were tightly controlled by the
Congregational majority. By
the middle of the eighteenth century,
however, "Anglicans
theretofore mere voters entered
Connecticut's active political
community as holders of public
office." But not every office was
open to them. Anglicans were
"rarely or never" elected by the
General Assembly to the colony's
"higher administrative, judicial,
and military" offices.20 Where
they did achieve success was in offices
determined by election in the local
communities.21 This explains the
"little offices" Kilbourn was
offered. From the moment he declared
himself a member of the Protestant
Episcopal Church until he later
removed to Ohio, he was exiled from the
main stream of Connecticut
public life.22
A further consequence of Kilbourn's
conversion from
Congregationalism, the religion of his
parents, to Episcopalianism
involved the question of loyalty. The
Peace of Paris that ended the
American War for Independence in 1783 by
no means ended the
bitterness that existed between patriot
and loyalist. One church
historian in Ohio reported that as late
as the 1820s when Kenyon
College was being built by the
Episcopalians at Gambier, "a farmer in
the neighborhood refused to believe that
this huge pile was not a
British fortress built to subdue Ohio to
the king, that Bishop Chase
19. Bruce E. Steiner, "Anglican
Office-Holding in Pre-Revolutionary Connecticut:
The Parameters of New England
Community," The William and Mary Quarterly, Third
Series, XXXI (January 1974), 370.
20. Ibid., 378.
21. Ibid., 379.
22. Congregational control of
Connecticut politics was finally broken by a coalition
of non-conforming Republicans in 1817.
Richard J. Purcell, Connecticut in Transition:
1775-1818 (Washington, 1918), 46-92; Origen Storrs Seymour, The
Beginnings of the
Episcopal Church in Connecticut, Tercentenary Commission of the State of Connec-
ticut, Committee on Historical
Publications XXX (New Haven, 1934), 13-26; Abraham
Bishop, Connecticut Republicanism: An
Oration on the Event and Power of Political
Delusion, American Imprint Series, First Series, Evans no. 198
(Albany, 1801), 1;
Church and State, A Political Union,
Formed by the Enemies of Both, American
Im-
print Series, Second Series, Evans no.
2036 (n.p., 1802), 41-54. In "An Address to the
Independent Electors of Franklinton,
Columbus, and Townships Adjacent," given on
October 12, 1812, Kilbourn asserted:
"I have ever been, and am, a decided Republican
...." See Correspondence of the
Late James Kilbourn, Founder of the Church in
Ohio, the Scioto Purchase, and the
Homestead Bill (Columbus, 1913), 13.
254 OHIO HISTORY
was not a secret agent of the English
crown, and that Kenyon
students were not British soldiers in
disguise."23 After all, in the first
fifty years of its existence as a
nation, the United States had fought
two wars with Great Britain,
As adherents to the Church of England,
Episcopalians were usually
sympathetic to the crown, even if they
refrained from outright aid to
the enemy.24 As Roger Viets
wrote officials of the London-based
Society which sponsored him, during the
tumultuous days following
the Stamp Act crisis, "the
authorities of old England, I doubt not,
have found and will find Episcopalians
in New England their most
zealous defenders."25
The history of the parish in which James
Kilbourn was married
mirrors Connecticut attitudes toward
Episcopalians. In 1744 St. An-
drew's Church in Bloomfield (a nearby
village southeast of Simsbury)
was founded. Early church members were
disgruntled Con-
gregationalists who refused to
contribute to the construction of a new
Congregational church removed from their
place of residence. St.
Andrew's first rector was the Reverend
William Gibbs, sent to the
parish from London by the Society for
the Propagation of the Gospel
in Foreign Parts. In the absence of an
American bishop, the Society
served as the Church of England's link
to mission parishes in the
colonies. In 1749 Gibbs was arrested for
refusing to pay court costs in
a test case involving support of
Congregational clergymen. Ap-
prehended in his home parish, Gibbs was
publicly humiliated by being
transported to the Hartford jail thrown
over the back of a horse with
his hands and feet tied beneath the body
of the animal.26
In June 1763 a Yale graduate originally
destined for the Congrega-
tional ministry but later converted to
the Episcopal faith became the
new rector of St. Andrew's. Ordained in
England less than a year
earlier, the Reverend Roger Viets was
the brother-in-law of Elisha
23. Richard G. Salomon, "St. John's
Parish, Worthington, and the Beginnings of the
Episcopal Church in Ohio," The
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly,
LXIV (January 1955), 61.
24. Zeichner, Connecticut's Years of
Controversy, 233-34.
25. Roger Viets to the Society for the
Propagation of the Gospel, London,
November 22, 1766, Kenneth W. Cameron,
ed., "Manuscript Journal of Roger Viets,"
Early Anglicanism in Connecticut, 5. For a detailed account of Anglican missionary
activities in the colony, see Maud
O'Neil, "A Struggle for Religious Liberty: An
Analysis of the Work of the S.P.G. in
Connecticut," Historical Magazine of the Pro-
testant Episcopal Church, XX (1951), 173-89.
26. William Gibbs to Reverend Dr.
Bearcroft, December 28, 1749, Documents Relat-
ing to St. Andrew's Church, Simsbury
(now in Bloomfield) and St. Ann's Church,
Granby, Connecticut 1744-1785 (Hartford, 1943); photostat copy in Connecticut State
Library.
Worthington, Ohio
255
Griswold of Simsbury.27 An
intelligent, articulate, and energetic man,
Viets ministered to thirty-three mission
churches in Connecticut, nine
in Massachusetts, and two in New York
while at the same time pres-
iding over the affairs of his home
church.28 Roger Viets undoubtedly
exercised great influence over his
fellow Anglicans in Connecticut.
He was also a loyalist, as was every
other Society missionary in the
colony.29 Viets' parishioners
were pro-British, and many suffered
persecution as he did.
Viets' loyalty to the crown is apparent
in the following passage
from a letter he wrote to London,
November 22, 1766:
When the Stamp duty was promulgated in
America, the Episcopalians of
Connecticut, in general, (without a
reprehensible officiousness) paid such a
proper deference of submission, as we
supposed ought to be paid to an Act of
Parliament, at the same time bearing
testimony against the riotous, not to say
rebellious proceedings of our
neighbours; for which decent and loyal conduct
we are still treated with unusual
cruelty. Indeed I at first feared a demolition
of our Churches and dwelling houses.
This calamity we happily escaped, but
have been deprived of almost every one
of the few public offices we had
enjoyed before, and have been constantly
pointed at as the worst of traitors
to our country, and betrayers of her
most essential interests and
liberties .. . 30
Viets' loyalism ultimately got him into
serious trouble during the
Revolution. A college historian at Yale
provides one version of what
happened: "In the period of the
Revolution, he [Viets] was under-
stood to sympathize with England, and as
punishment for assisting
two British officers to escape from
prison, and for traitorous corres-
pondence with the enemy, he was fined by
the Superior Court of the
County in January, 1777, £ 20, and
condemned to be imprisoned in
the Hartford jail for one year."31
27. Heritage of Granby, 164.
28. In the following twenty-four years
Viets baptized 1869 persons, married 176
couples, officiated at the burial of 219
of his flock, and increased family membership
from seventy-five to 280. By 1774, his
far-flung parish was among the most populous in
the Connecticut colony. Roger Viets, A
Serious Address and Farewell Charge to the
Members of the Church of England in
Simsbury and Adjacent Parts (Hartford,
1787),
3. F. B. Dexter, "Roger Viets, Yale
Graduate," Biographical Sketches of the
Graduates of Yale College with Annals
of the College in Early Anglicanism
in Connec-
ticut, 1-2.
29. "When the fighting began, every
one of the twenty S.P.G. missionaries in Con-
necticut supported the Tory cause."
Glenn Weaver, "Anglican-Congregationalist Ten-
sions in Pre-Revolutionary
Connecticut," Historical Magazine of the Protestant Epis-
copal Church, XXVI (September 1957), 285.
30. Roger Viets to the Society for the
Propagation of the Gospel, London,
November 22, 1766, Cameron, ed.,
"Manuscript Journal of Roger Viets," 5, in Early
Anglicanism in Connecticut.
31. Dexter, "Roger Viets, Yale
Graduate," 3-5, in Early Anglicanism in Connec-
ticut.
256 OHIO HISTORY |
|
A second version of what happened appears in the Viets family genealogy: "During the Revolution Roger Viets was suspected of sympathizing with the loyalists. He was on one occasion arrested and placed in the county jail at Hartford for giving comfort to a company of Tories. In answering the charge he replied that he could not refrain from giving food and shelter to men who came destitute to his house."32 Whichever story is correct, the state historian later re- ported, "the patriot sentiment was so strong that loyalists from other colonies were sent to Connecticut where it was believed they would have no influence."33 James Kilbourn was only seven years old when Roger Viets was imprisoned, but the cumulative experiences of Viets and his followers during the Revolution constituted a legacy of suppression that Kil- bourn and the other Worthington pioneers inherited. Roger Viets was the mentor of Kilbourn's good friend and tutor Alexander Griswold. Moreover he served as the parish minister for most of Worthington's first families: Pinneys, Toppings, Cases,
32. Francis Hubbard Viets, comp., A Genealogy of the Viets Family with Biographi- cal Sketches (Hartford, 1902), 32. 33. Encyclopedia Britannica, 1955, s.v. "Connecticut," by James Brewster. |
Worthington, Ohio
257
Beaches, Griswolds, and, of course,
Kilbourns.34 The Simsbury-
based parish of Roger Viets encompassed
the entire Connecticut-
Massachusetts region from which the
first Worthington settlers would
later come. Given these facts, it seems
inevitable that Connecticut
Episcopalians, even those who joined the
Church after Viets was
transferred to Nova Scotia, were well
aware of the harassment and
persecution suffered by their
co-religionists during and after the con-
flict with England.
The Simsbury parish was poor, scattered,
and frequently without
benefit of clergy. In 1764, Roger Viets
noted that "the good people of
St. Ann's Church, Salmonbrook [the
church that preceded St. Peter's
in Granby] proceed toward the completing
of their little church, as
fast as their poverty and other
difficulties will admit." Prayer books
and religious tracts "are
uncommonly necessary in my mission,"
Viets wrote Society officials,
"being 35 miles from any other Epis-
copal minister." In 1765 he
reported to London that about half the
Episcopal churches in New England were
without pastors. In 1776
this entry appears in Society records:
"many of my Episcopal
parishioners remove their habitations
into places far distant from all
Episcopal churches, and thereby are lost
to our Church." Children of
Episcopal parents often become
Congregationalists, Viets com-
plained, because the dissenters have
many ministers, "all the power
and influence of civil government for
support," strong religious edu-
cation programs, wealth, and superiority
in numbers.35
The London records of the Society for
the Propagation of the Gos-
pel indicate that after the Declaration
of Independence was signed in
1776, all Episcopal churches except ones
in Rhode Island and Con-
necticut were closed. Not until five
years later do we again encounter
reports of Church activities in New
England. From Simsbury in 1784,
Roger Viets wrote that the losses in his
congregation "by deaths,
emigration &c." were
"pretty nearly balanced by the accession of the
new Conformists."36 What
were not balanced were church budgets.
All support for American missions from
abroad was now withdrawn.
34. This assertion is based upon a
comparison of Worthington's first settlers with the
family names listed in Roger Viets'
Record Book. See Frank Corbin, A Walking Tour
of Old Worthington (Worthington, 1969), passim; Scioto Company
Minute Book,
1802-1806, Ohio Historical Society,
34-35; Bates, comp., "Records of the Rev. Roger
Viets," passim, in Early
Anglicanism in Connecticut.
35. Roger Viets to the Society for
Propagation of the Gospel, June 23, 1764, June 25,
1765, June 25, 1766; Cameron, ed.,
"Manuscript Journal of Roger Viets," 3-5, in Early
Anglicanism in Connecticut.
36. C. F. Pascoe, Two Hundred Years
of the S.P.G.: An Historical Account of the
Society for the Propagation of the
Gospel in Foreign Parts, 1701-1900, 2
vols. (Lon-
don, 1901), I, 51.
258 OHIO HISTORY
Henceforth, American adherents to the
Church of England must fend
for themselves.
The London Society had not forgotten
their loyal servant Roger
Viets, however, and in 1787 he was
offered the pulpit of Digby in
Nova Scotia. He removed there to start a
new life at the age of fifty.
The decision of the Viets family to
emigrate to Canada was one many
American loyalists embraced. Others
sought to start again in the West
Indies or in England itself.37 In
any case, the Anglican experience in
the Revolution certainly contributed to
the flow of migration from
Connecticut during the postwar era.
Roger Viets' departure from Connecticut
produced a leadership
vacuum for many of the faithful left
behind. The economic prosperity
farmers hoped for after the Revolution
failed to materialize for many,
as Josiah Kilbourn knew all too well.
Growing families engaged in
occasional lumbering and subsistence
agriculture began to consider
seriously the possibility of moving
elsewhere. Unlike some of their
co-religionists, most of Roger Viets'
old flock did not choose to leave
the country. But with Viets in Nova
Scotia, and with Alexander
Griswold deeply involved in establishing
the Protestant Episcopal
Church in America, it fell to James
Kilbourn to provide the vision,
leadership, and organizational skill
necessary to plan and launch a
project for an American haven for
New England Episcopalians. It
may be said that Viets, by precept and
example, prepared the way,
but it was Kilbourn who became both the
cohesive and propulsive
force that drew together and launched
many of Viets' old flock on a
venture into the wilderness.
Just prior to 1800 James Kilbourn made
two exploratory trips to
western New York, whether out of
personal curiosity or as land agent
for some unnamed settlement company is
not known. What is known
is that Kilbourn's father-in-law, John
Fitch, was fascinated with the
future promise of the Northwest
Territory. It was Fitch in fact who
drew one of the earliest maps of lands
west of the Ohio.38
In the postwar era, the Connecticut
valley buzzed with rumors of
cheap, rich land beyond the mountains.
Rufus Putman of Rutland,
Massachusetts, and Manaseh Cutler of
Killingly, Connecticut
founded Marietta, Ohio's first white
community, April 7, 1788. Within
37. Bates, comp., "Records of the
Rev. Roger Viets," 2, in Early Anglicanism in
Connecticut; Dexter, "Roger Viets, Yale Graduate," 4-5, in
Early Anglicanism in Con-
necticut; Wallace Brown, The Good Americans: The Loyalists in
the American Revolu-
tion (New York, 1969), 192-213, 216-21.
38. Shepard, History of St. Mark's
Church, 186; Mira Clarke Parsons, "John Fitch,
Inventor of Steamboats," The
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly,
VIII (1900), 400.
Worthington, Ohio
259
two years, four other companies of New
England settlers joined
them. In 1795 the Treaty of Greene Ville
was signed, essentially
guaranteeing security from Indian attack
for Ohio's incoming settlers.
Of particular interest to beleagured
Espiscopalians was the first arti-
cle of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787
guaranteeing that no person
would be "molested on account of
his mode of worship or religious
sentiments, in the said
territory."39
Perhaps Ohio was the place to go, and it
was James Kilbourn,
prosperous, energetic, and resourceful,
who could translate the vague
hopes of glorious opportunities in the
West into reality. For Episcopa-
lians in the depressed Granby area,
Kilbourn must have seemed like
the answer to a prayer. Best of all, he
was a minister of their own
faith: what more could a group of
religious pioneers intent on estab-
lishing a new community in the
wilderness hope for in a leader?
Perhaps Roger Viets captured the
thoughts of Worthington immi-
grants as well as anyone in the last
sermon he preached at St. Peter's
Episcopal Church, Granby, June 29, 1800.
Although Viets had in
mind his own final visit with his
Connecticut flock, the words he
spoke expressed the religious ideals
which later guided Worthington
settlers. The principles of unity,
virtue, charity, and a firm adherence
to the doctrines of the Christian faith
that Viets extolled were clearly
manifested in Kilbourn's Worthington
settlement.
The first great, material and
indispensable support of the Christian cause is
a constant and serious attendance on
public worship: The neglect of which is
a most heinous sin, provoking to God and
scandalous to the gospel. The next
duty conducive to the same purpose is
unity among yourselves. A kingdom or
a community divided within itself will
inevitably fall to ruin. A wrangling,
contending family will most certainly
come to shame and destruction; so will
a church or congregation. Exert
yourselves in acts of liberality to support the
church and the clergy. I cannot be
suspected of giving this advice with a view
of self-interest as my stay among you
is, alas, so short. Be kind and charitable
to the poor and distressed-Be patient,
forbearing and forgiving to each
other-Do to all men as you would, they
should do unto you-Perform your
duty to God, your neighbours and
yourselves with all punctuality and
uniformity-not only with zeal and
constancy hold fast the great, essential
doctrines of the Christian faith, but
carefully adorn the profession of the gos-
pel, by honest, holy and pious
conversation.40
Three years before, in his Serious
Address, Viets had painted a
glowing picture of the new community of
Episcopalians at Digby.
39. The Northwest Ordinance is in
Clarence Edwin Carter and John Porter Bloom,
eds., The Territorial Papers of the
United States, 27 vols. (Washington, 1934-1969), II,
46.
40. Roger Viets, A Sermon Preached in
St. Peter's Church, Granby, Formerly
Simsbury, in Connecticut, New
England, on the 29th Day of June 1800 (Hartford,
1800), 14-15.
260 OHIO
HISTORY
Perhaps he hoped to encourage some of
his former parishioners to
leave Connecticut and join him in
British Nova Scotia. His words
may also have helped to confirm James
Kilbourn in his own plan of
emigration and settlement. In his
autobiography written in 1845 Kil-
bourn summarized the process of
emigration this way: "About this
time, commencement of 1800, conceived
the plan of forming an emi-
gration company to the then N. Western
Territory. It took about one
year (1800) to make my friends believe
me serious in the proposition;
the next (1801) to satisfy them that I
was not insane; the third (1802)
to explore the country, complete the
Scioto Company of forty mem-
bers and prepare for operations, and the
fourth (1803) to commence
improvements, and near the end of the
year to conduct the families to
the purchase, all of which devolved on
me."41
Kilbourn's innate skill as a persuasive
speaker manifested itself in a
variety of other ways as well. We know
he was an effective lay
preacher in Connecticut. Later he was to
demonstrate his rhetorical
ability in Congress as originator of the
Homestead Act and as a skill-
ful advocate of the interests of
settlers in the old Northwest Territory.
Newspaper publisher, land company agent,
founder of the Worth-
ington Manufacturing Company with
branches at Steubenville and
Columbus as well as Worthington, Kilbourn
was a natural leader of
men in all kinds of enterprises.42
41. Kilbourn, "Autobiography,"
114. Kilbourn's description of cheap arable land in
Ohio was highly persuasive to thrifty
New England farmers. The Scioto Company ac-
tually purchased its land at $1.25 per
acre while good farm land in Connecticut com-
manded a price of $50 per acre. See
"Scioto Company: Abstract of Articles of Agree-
ment, 14 December 1802," The Old
Northwest Genealogical Quarterly, VI (July 1903),
84. For an account of prices for good land in Connecticut,
see Transactions of the
Society for Promoting Agriculture in
the State of Connecticut, 14.
42. James Kilbourn fit the role of a
land company organizer perfectly. Indeed, Daniel
Boorstin might almost have had him in
mind when he described this critical leadership
role: "Out of the vast American
spaces and from the need to travel in groups came the
power of the organizer. Men living
beyond the jurisdiction of government, away from
the places and customs of their fathers
had to be persuaded to do their jobs. Here was a
new demand for that special combination
of qualities that enabled a man to persuade or
cajole others to do their share for the
group. Without the power of tradition or prestige
of an army commander, the leader of a
traveling community had to be able to get things
done. He had to create an esprit de
corps quickly and preserve it among a miscellane-
ous crowd in the face of thirst, hunger,
and disease, discouragement, mortal danger,
and death. A host of factors combined to
give the organizer a power he had seldom
before held outside of military life or
civil government. In traditional, settled com-
munities, many qualities-noble ancestry,
landed property, wealth, bravery, military
prowess, learning, shrewdness, or
elequence-might make a man a leader; among the
transients in sparsely settled America,
the leader was the persuader and the organizer."
Daniel J. Boorstin, The Americans:
The National Experience (New York, 1965), 57-58.
Shepard, History of St. Mark's
Church, 189-91; Ann Natalie Hansen, "James Kil-
bourn, Ohio Pioneer" (M.A. thesis,
Ohio State University, 1950), 84-85.
Worthington, Ohio 261
Kilbourn and Nathaniel Little made an
exploratory trip to central
Ohio on behalf of the Scioto Company of
Granby in 1802. Their origi-
nal plan was to settle on a tract of
land along Big Walnut Creek in
what is now Columbus, but swamp fever or
malaria, from which
many settlers died, was deemed too great
a risk. Consequently a site
on high land east of the Olentangy River
some nine miles north was
selected instead. An advance work party
of nine, including the family
of Lemuel Kilbourn, James' older
brother, came west in the spring of
1803 to plant corn, erect a saw mill,
and build cabins. By the follow-
ing December one hundred settlers, including
children, had arrived to
claim their property on the Company's
purchase.43
One of the first decisions of the Scioto
Company proprietors,
agreed upon in Connecticut in 1802, was
that a town lot and a
hundred-acre farm lot should be set
aside for a school and church.
The church specified in the Company
Minute Book was the Protes-
tant Episcopal.44
Worthington's sister village, Granville, established
in 1804 some twenty-seven miles to the
east, was in many ways simi-
lar. Granville settlers came from the
same region of Connecticut and
Massachusetts as those in Worthington.
James Kilbourn was well
known to Granvillites and Levi Buttles
of Worthington served as the
Granville town surveyor. But in one
important particular the two set-
tlements differed. While Granville
provided free land for its "future
village churches," the Scioto
Company proprietors of Worthington
thought only in terms of a Protestant
Episcopal Church.45
By the middle of 1804 Worthingtonites
had established a school and
library, along with an Episcopal
society, and a large log cabin for
public meetings of all sorts, including
religious services. In a letter to
Thomas Worthington, written four months
after the establishment of
the town, Kilbourn emphasized the
religious nature of the new com-
munity. "We have formed," he
reported, "a regular society for Re-
ligious purposes, have Divine Service
performed every Sunday in
Public."46 Later on Kilbourn
established an Indian trading post and
43. Nathaniel Little, "Journal of
Nathaniel Little," The Old Northwest Genealogical
Quarterly, X
(July 1907), 237-45; James Kilbourn, "Report of James Kilbourn, Agent for
the Scioto Company for Spring-Autumn
1802," The Old Northwest Genealogical Quar-
terly, VI (July 1903), 71-82; "Report of James Kilbourn,
Agent of the Scioto Company
for Summer of 1803," Ibid., 87-91.
Frank Corbin describes the process by which Kil-
bourn and the Scioto Company purchased
16,000 acres in central Ohio from Dr. Jonas
Stanberry and General Jonathan Dayton.
See Frank Corbin, "The Birth of Our Town,"
The Worthington News, September 11, 1975, I, 10.
44. Scioto Company Minute Book,
1802-1806, 31.
45. Utter, Granville, 44.
46. James Kilbourn to Thomas
Worthington, February 7, 1804, The Papers of
Thomas Worthington, Ohio Historical
Society. See also Salomon, "St. John's Parish,"
63.
262 OHIO HISTORY
the first Masonic lodge in Ohio. A
medical college and female semi-
nary would follow. From such beginnings
Worthington became a kind
of frontier cultural center.
As for James Kilbourn,,he achieved in
Ohio recognition far beyond
the "little offices" offered
to him in Connecticut: congressman, pres-
idential elector, mayor, college
trustee, and college president. Small
wonder Joel Buttles who married
Kilbourn's step-daughter described
him as "the principal sachem of the
tribe."47
Hundreds of other towns were being
organized in the new state of
Ohio, but in one respect Worthington
differed from all the rest. From
the beginning it was designed as a haven
for Episcopalians. In the
West generally, the Episcopal Church
"made little impression in the
years before 1815. It had a rigid
organization and formalism which
ill-fitted it for the extraordinary
measures needed to carry the mes-
sage of the church into the frontier
regions. In 1820 there were no
Episcopalian ministers in Indiana,
Illinois, or Tennessee and only ten
in Ohio and Kentucky."48 But
Worthington was an exception to the
rule. The Reverend James Kilbourn was
the first Episcopal clergyman
to cross the Appalachians and take up
residence in Ohio; indeed, Kil-
bourn was the only minister of his faith
to live in the state for the first
twelve years of its existence. St.
John's, the church he founded in
Worthington, was the first Episcopal
parish west of the Alleghenies.
After the War of 1812 Worthington became
the center of church activ-
ity for the entire state. On October 20,
1816, the first diocese west of
the Ohio River was established there.
Philander Chase, Kilbourn's
successor at St. John's, was chosen
Ohio's first bishop. At Worth-
ington, too, Kenyon College was founded
as a seminary for the train-
ing of Episcopal clergy. Although
Presbyterians and Methodists later
made their homes in Worthington, the
community achieved its dis-
tinctive goal: to provide a comfortable
haven for Episcopalians on the
western frontier.49
47. Joel Buttles, Extracts from the
Diary of Joel Buttles (Newport, 1889), 23; Salo-
mon, "St. John's Parish,"
62-63; Kilbourn, "Autobiography," 115-20.
48. Reginald Horsman, The Frontier in
the Formative Years: 1783-1815 (New York,
n.d.), 129.
49. Salomon, "St. John's
Parish," 64-65, 67-74.
PAUL C. BOWERS, JR.
GOODWIN F. BERQUIST, JR.
Worthington, Ohio: James Kilbourn's
Episcopal Haven on the Western
Frontier
One of the most significant developments
to occur in this country in
the aftermath of the American Revolution
was the settlement of the
old Northwest Territory beyond the Ohio
River. Families from the
Atlantic states streamed west in
ever-increasing droves, establishing
countless new communities in the region
now occupied by the states
of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, and
Illinois. Among these new towns and
villages was Worthington, Ohio, an
Episcopal haven founded by
James Kilbourn on the western frontier.
On the morning of September 23, 1786, a
fifteen-year-old boy
walked away from his father's farm in
the bleak "dead swamp
woods" section of central
Connecticut hard by the east side of
Farmington Mountain. James Kilbourn's
father, Josiah, had suffered
severe financial losses during the
American Revolution.1 Economic
dislocation brought on by the events of
eight years of war was
exacerbated by soil exhaustion and, in
the case of Kilbourn, a
burgeoning family of seven children, six
of whom lived at home.2 In
1. James Shepard, History of St.
Mark's Church (New Britain, Connecticut, 1907),
183.
2. Oscar Zeichner states that a
"very high birth rate increased the population by
more than fifty thousand between 1762
and 1774, and made Connecticut the second
most densely populated colony in New
England on the eve of the Revolution. At the
same time thousands of its inhabitants
moved out of the colony at a phenomenal pace
in the hope of finding more and better
land in other provinces." Oscar Zeichner, Con-
necticut's Years of Controversy, 1750-1776 (Chapel Hill, 1949), 144. Albert Laverne
Olson, Agricultural Economy and the
Population in Eighteenth-Century Connecticut,
Tercentenary Commission of the State of
Connecticut, Committee on Historical Publi-
cations XL (New Haven, 1935), 7-31;
William T. Utter, Granville: The Story of an Ohio
Village (Granville, 1956), 23-25; The Heritage of Granby,
1786-1965: Its Founding and
History (n.p.: The Salmon Brook Historical Society, 1967), 161;
Transactions of the
Society for Promoting Agriculture in
the State of Connecticut, American
Imprint
Series, Second Series, Evans no. 2081
(New Haven, 1802). In his diary, Joel Buttles, a
nigrant to Worthington in 1804 and an
ardent student of agriculture, observed that in
he Granby, Connecticut area "the
whole country is poor land, always poor but in
addition to that it has been worn out
long ago"; The Papers of Joel Buttles, Archives of
he Trinity Episcopal Church, Columbus,
Ohio.