Governor Buckingham's Connection with Christian and Benevolent Associations- The First Triennial Congre::ational Council-His Ability as its Moderator-Ilis Style of Writing and Address-Photograph Copy of His Letter to the President in Transmitting their Paper on the "State of the Country." THE BUCKINGHAM FAMILY. Thomas Buckingham, the first of the name in this country, was one of the colony that settled New Haven, Ct. The company came over during the summer of 1637, passed the winter in Boston, and sailed around to Quinnipick, the Indian name of their future home, the next spring. This, as the historian Trumbull says, was the most opulent company which came into New England. Mr. Eaton and Mr. Hopkins had been merchants in London, possessed great estates, and were men of eminence for abilities and integrity. They had with them for their clergyman Mr. Davenport, a famous minister in the city of London. And the fame of Mr. Davenport, the reputation and good estates of the principal gentlemen of the company, made the people of Massachusetts, says the historian, desirous of their settlement in that Commonwealth. It appears from the original records, that Thomas Buckingham, as one of the colonists, received his allotment of land near the corner of College and Crown streets, New Haven, not far from the spot where the large spreading oak stood, under which Mr. Davenport preached his first sermon on the temptations of the wilderness, and where Dr. Lyman Beecher was afterwards born. But new settlements were to be made, and as the colony possessed another minister, the next spring another church was organized, and Mr. Pruden settled over it, and this company removed to Milford, ten miles west. Their mode of organizing a church was this: Seven men of Christian faith and exemplary life were chosen, who covenanted together, and with God, to walk in all the ways and ordi nances of the Lord blameless. These men were styled "The Seven Pillars," and to these the other members were added. Among these Seven Pillars is found the name of Thomas Buckingham, and among the first to be joined to them, is Hannah his wife. Opposite his name, is entered upon the Church Records in the hand writing of the second minister, "dyed in Boston." *It seems that some seventeen years after his removal to Milford, upon the death of his pastor, he was sent to the Bay to secure another minister, where he died in 1657. He left a family of six children, two of them born in England. The youngest of them, Thomas, the direct ancestor of the Governor, was born at Milford in 1646, and became pastor of the church in Saybrook, Ct. This "Minister Buckingham," as he was called, held an honorable and useful position in the Connecticut colonies. He was one of the ten ministers who founded Yale College, and had under his supervision and instruction a portion of the students, and for the eighteen years the college was located at Saybrook, and the commencements held there. He was also one of the moderators of the synod that framed the "Saybrook Platform," the system of faith and government upon which the churches of Connecticut were organized. He was likewise the faithful friend of the Indians of Connecticut, and one in whom they confided. One of the sons of Uncas, the Mohigan Sachem, made Minister Buckingham an executor of his will and guardian of his children, and desired that his sons should receive an English education, and that he himself should be buried at Saybrook, in a coffin, after the manner of the English. Here this good pastor died in 1709, at the age of sixty-three, after a ministry of fortyfour years, leaving behind him a large and estimable family. His family consisted of nine children, who all lived to grow up, and were married and settled in the town, and where most of them remained for several generations. Indeed, it * Records of the First Church, Milford, Ct. was not until the beginning of this century, that the father 1637 ་ GOV. BUCKINGHAM'S HOME AND TRAINING. Lebanon, Ct., which lies on the old stage road from Norwich to Hartford, eleven miles from the former to the Brick Meeting House in Lebanon, is a typical New England town. The township is large, some six miles by eight in territory, and entirely devoted to farming. Its soil, a moist black loam, considerably stony, with plenty of mud in the spring, very green in the summer, and never so fresh as when there is drought elsewhere, makes it a good agricultural region. The principal street stretches along a ridge five or six miles, with the farms running down on each sido into the valleys, and showing a substantial and thrifty population. The inhabitants are almost entirely of New England stock, proud of their town and of its history, and not unmindful of the number and character of the Governors they have furnished to the State, and their long term of service. This is no empty boast, for they have given the State five Governors, the three Trumbulls, Governor Bissell and Governor Buckingham together holding that office for a third of a century. The town never had a population of quite 4,000; still a century ago, when Hartford had barely 5,000, and Farmington, which was larger, had only 6,000, the leading characters of the State were quite as likely to be found in such a community as elsewhere. For such towns were pretty sure to have an able ministry, good schools and good society. Dr. Solomon Williams, "among the most prominent of the New England clergy," was pastor there for fifty-four |