Teen Power - 1793

The Chase family was the primary founding family of Cornish, New Hampshire. I try not to follow people who do not stay in the Upper Valley, but Philander Chase had an influence on the Upper Valley, and became prominent nationally, thus I will tell his story.

Philander was the youngest son of Alice and Dudley Chase. He became the first Episcopal Bishop of the state of Ohio, and traveled throughout the United States starting new Episcopal churches and colleges. Laura Chase Smith, Philander's granddaughter, wrote a biography of Philander, and her book, which she wrote using information taken from his own autobiography, letters, and diaries, tells a lot about the life of the Chase family during the early days of Cornish, and in the newly independent United States.

Laura recounts her grandfather's stories of playing on the banks of the Connecticut River, and how he was raised mostly by his sister Alace, since his mother was always either busy or sick. Even so, when he grew up, Philander respected his parents' wishes concerning his education and future. He had planned on staying home, working the family farm and caring for his parents in their old age, but they had other plans. They wanted him to become a minister.

With that end in mind, following in the footsteps of his older brothers, Philander entered Dartmouth College, at age16. During his Sophomore year at Dartmouth, when he was 17 years old, he happened to find an Episcopal Book of Common Prayer. He took it home, read it through, and decided he found the Episcopal way of worship much more beautiful than than what he was used to, and he decided to become an Episcopal minister.

The Chase family was Congregational, and they attended the Congregational Church in Cornish. Laura says, in her book, “Deacon and Alice (notice she uses the modern spelling of her great-grandmother's name) were born and bred in the Puritan faith, but both had the kindly, generous nature which disarmed the rigid laws and practices of those early days”. She also mentions that some of her ancestors, in Puritan Connecticut, were fined for picking peas on the Sabbath.

You have to wonder how strongly attached the Chases were to their Congregational beliefs, because when Philander, at age 17, shared his new religious beliefs with his family, they enthusiastically embraced his new denomination, going as far as to tear down the Congregational Church and build an Episcopal church in its place. I would find this hard to believe if I didn't know it was true. Furthermore, Laura herself thought this was pretty amazing. She says that “Not a voice was raised against this plan in the neighborhood. This is certainly a remarkable event. It is doubtful if anything like it has ever occurred before or since. That a mere youth should have brought this about among his relations is indeed wonderful, but that the whole neighborhood should have consented to this great change seems next to impossible.” Yes, it does.

It seems even more unlikely in view of the fact that America has just won a war of independence from Great Britain, and the Episcopal Church was (and is) the Church of England, the established church of the monarchy and everything it stands for. Philander's Uncle Jonathan was a Colonel in the Revolutionary War and his father served in the Continental Army as a private under Jonathan. This makes the fact that this family was willing to abandon their Congregational beliefs and become Episcopalian even more remarkable.

All this occurred before Philander had even begun training to be an Episcopal minister. He graduated from Dartmouth three years later, at age 20. The Chase family was affiliated with two Episcopal churches, one in Cornish and one in Bethel, which is not surprising, in light of the fact that they were the original settlers of both towns. Neither church had a permanent pastor, but two traveling preachers held services at both places. One was the brother of Vermont's Governor Chittenden. There was no Episcopal seminary in the United States at the time, and through these ministers, Philander learned that there was an Episcopal minister in Albany, New York who would be willling to provide him with religious instruction in an apprenticeship type arrangement.

He went to Albany, the first city he had ever seen, knocked on Reverend Ellison's door and introduced himself. He was welcomed with open arms. Soon he had a teaching job in the city of Albany, so that he could support himself while he was studying theology. In her book, Laura mentions that he made $400 a year.