Copyright USGenNet Inc., 2013, All Rights Reserved U.S. Data Repository Please read U.S. Data Repository Copyright Statement on this page: Transcribed and submitted by Linda Talbott for the US Data Repository http://www.us-data.org/ ========================================================================= U.S. Data Repository NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization. Non-commercial organizations desiring to use this material must obtain the consent of the transcriber prior to use. Individuals desiring to use this material in their own research may do so. ========================================================================= Formatted by U.S. Data Repository Chief Archivist, Linda Talbott All of the above information must remain when copied or downloaded. =========================================================================== A Memoir of the Late William Hodge, Sen. Bigelow Bros., Buffalo, N.Y. - 1885 (111-114) EARLY RELIGIOUS SERVICES AND SUNDAY SCHOOLS RELIGIOUS SERVICES -------- Although Mr. HODGE so late in life became a member of a church, he brought up his family in the way of attendance upon Christian worship and the use of such means of instruction in religious things as the times afforded. In this paper I give therefore, some reminiscences concerning these matters. The first Religious Service which I remember to have attended, was one held in a hewn-log house on farm lot No. 33. I was then, I think, six or seven years of age; for it must have been in or shortly before the first year of the last war with England, —that is, in 1811 or 1812. At this service there was preaching, and the scene made a last- ing impression on my mind. I have never forgotten the effect that it produced upon me, for it made me at that early age feel that I wanted to be a Christian. At this period, as I remember well, I for the first time heard our district school teacher open the school with prayer. It was a new experience to hear the quiet voice of prayer in the place usually full of the disturbances caused by uneasy, stirring children. These prayers at the beginning of the school day also made on my mind a lasting im- pression, and their effect upon me, then, a seven-years-old, dark- haired, curlyheaded boy, I now, a white-headed man of eighty years and more, recall distinctly. Though seventy-three years have passed I have never forgotten Mr. EATON, —him who was our day-school teacher at that time. Most of those who attended that school then, have, I presume (like himself), long since passed away from the scenes of this life. I know of only one of them, besides myself, who is now living. I cannot withhold the thought, how well it would be if, now-a-days, every school could be opened with prayer; and the pleasant memory of the exercise be carried down into later days! I remember well Rev. GLEZEN FILLMORE'S preaching in our log school- house in 1814. It was his custom to come around two or three times a year, on horseback; and at these times he always staid over night at my father's house. ELDER FILLMORE, it is well known, was the pioneer of Methodism in Western New York. In the early part of 1815, the war closed. Between that time and 1820, meetings for conference and prayer were held at the Cold Spring tavern, which was kept by STEPHEN FRANKLIN, a very active Christian man. Meanwhile, in 1816, the First Presbyterian Church, whose members had been scattered by the war, had been re-organized, and Rev. MILES P. SQUIER had, in the same year, become its pastor. The place for holding the church services was, I think, at first, a school-room on the "Kremlin Block," and afterwards the Court-house, and these were the places where we attended worship. I well remember the religious services which were held in the Court-house. The seats were mere rough boards, laid on saw-benches or something of that sort. The women and children sat together, on one side of the room, and the men on the other side. After a while some families who could afford it, provided themselves with nice painted seats of pine plank with backs to them; and then the members of each family would all sit together. In those times we had preaching morning and afternoon, and usually evenings too. Few families from our neighborhood, however, attended regularly, — some not at all. And there were not many individuals among us who professed to be Christians. The principal leaders at the meetings which were held in our Cold Spring neighborhood, according to my recollection, were Deacons JABEZ GOODELL, AMOS CALLENDER and, I think, JOSEPH STOCKING, of the First Presbyterian Church; and it was seldom that we had preaching in the neighborhood. The practice came to be, after a while, to have some person come to preach or exhort, on Sunday, at the school-house, but without stated or regular preaching for any length of time. Thus it went on for many years. In 1830 or 1S31, Deacon ABNER BRYANT and myself "took turns" in bringing out and taking back from and to the village, those who would come to preach in our school-house on Sunday evening. This we contin- ued for a season or more. Among those who thus preached for us was Rev. JAMES REMINGTON. He, at the commencement of his ministerial life, used to come and hold service in our school-house quite frequently. Rev. JAMES N. GRANGER, son of the late Judge ERASTUS GRANGER, a member of the Baptist denomination, before he had finished his studies, held meetings there, also. His father's house was on the west side of Main street, just north of CONJOCKETY'S creek. So also another young Bap- tist minister, Rev. Mr. BROWN, preached for us a number of Sabbath evenings. He was very much liked by the people. Other young men who were yet in the midst of their studies for the ministry, came out from time to time, and held evening meetings with us. I remember, besides those I have named, another, a Methodist preacher, Rev. ORIN ABBOTT. I recollect his own account of his con- version. It was in the time of the War of 1812, while our army had possession of Fort Erie. He was soldier in the army, and when at one time walking on his "beat" between the two hostile forces at the dead of night, under a clear sky, and with the stars shining brightly above him, he became engaged in thinking of God, and his almighty power, and of his own nothingness in the sight of God. Thus contemplating, he received into his mind and heart that light, and new comprehension of truth, which he believed to be "change of heart;" and then and there he became a converted man. ===========================================================================