The Founding of the Female Foreign Mission Society of Greenwich in 1815

by Jeffrey Bingham Mead
Greenwich Time. Looking Back: 1996

A watercolor by Mary E. Mason of the Second Congregational Church, Greenwich, in the early 19th century. 

On Wednesday, April 5, 1815, a circle of Greenwich's Congregationalist women gathered to organize one of the town's earliest voluntary associations. They met at the home of the Rev. Dr. Isaac Lewis, pastor of the Second Congregational Church, and they called their group "The Female Foreign Mission Society of Greenwich."

The Second Congregational Church, Greenwich, Connecticut. This edifice was built in 1858. 

This was at the dawning of that period that swept America known as the Second Great Awakening. The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) had been created to send forth missionaries to "heathen" lands. 

As Sarah Lewis of Greenwich wrote in 1815:

"It is the duty of those who enjoy the precious privileges of that Gospel to make vigorous and untried efforts for its propagation among the benighted heathen. That this glorious and happy event maybe hastened when you can no longer admit of the doubt."

The gravestone of Miss Sarah Lewis in the Lewis Family Cemetery off Lafayette Place. 

Of course, funds were needed for these missionary efforts. The ladies of Greenwich, like numerous others elsewhere, solicited funds from the community – and from their own pocketbooks.

Lewis served for 20 years as secretary of this group, and her recorded reports are eloquent and detailed, sprinkled with observations about individuals and missionary activities throughout North America, Asia, the Middle East and the North Pacific. The Foreign Mission School in Cornwall, Litchfield County, Connecticut was also the subject of their varied interests.

The Foreign Mission School in Cornwall, Litchfield County, Connecticut. 

It was here that young men of Cherokee, Hawaiian and other ancestries were trained to return to their homelands and preach Christianity.

Miss Lewis said in 1822 of the efforts of women: 

"In every country unenlightened by divine truth, the female sex are considered as an inferior race of beings, kept in a state of slavish subjugation and often treated with the utmost cruelty. Ignorant and miserable, degraded to the lower scale of intelligent beings, they are left a prey to vice without one ray of light to guide them through the dark labyrinths of error and superstition, without one beam of hope to cheer them… and such, but for divine revelation, would have been our condition.

"It is this which has elevated us to that rank in society which we now sustain and given us a title to all the blessings of civilized life, that has opened us to the sources of knowledge, called into exercise the dormant faculties of the mind and rendered us capable of intellectual enjoyment." 

These ladies, with clear minds and heads held up high, dedicated their duty to serve God and their fellow men and women.

One of the later members of the society, Charlotte Close, left Greenwich in 1838 as Mrs. Horton O. Knapp to serve as a missionary teacher in Hawaii. Her mother, Sally Close, had been a member of the society, as well.

There are moving tributes to deceased members of the society, such as Elizabeth Stillson. Sarah Lewis wrote of her: 

"Long will be the name of Elizabeth Stillson be had and grateful remembrance! Long shall we delight to cherish the recollection of her virtues."

These ladies were just one part of a much larger movement to spread Protestant Christianity to the outermost reaches of the world. They celebrated progress and lamented the trials faced by missionaries and faraway lands. The women of the Female Foreign Mission Society were organized and vigorous in their efforts to support their cause. 

The same tradition of volunteerism continues today, making the Town of Greenwich a better place to live and work.

Jeffrey Bingham Mead is a free-lave writer and direct descendent of one of the town's  founding families. He grew up in backcountry Greenwich.  

Honorary Members of the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions (ABCFM)

by Jeffrey Bingham Mead
Greenwich Time, Greenwich, Connecticut: June 29, 1997

For generations, it has been a tradition in town for citizens to be honored in a variety of ways. Such gestures are made even today by local organizations to individuals out of a sense of appreciation.

While perusing the 19th-century editions of The Missionary Herald, published monthly by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM), I noticed that a number of town citizens were made honorary members of the ABCFM.

The 19th century was dominated by a series of religious revivals known as the Second Great Awakening. The people of Greenwich were enthusiastic supporters of foreign missions and similar agencies that took up temperance, abolition and other causes – all spearheaded by Connecticut by "awakened" Congregationalists and other religious denominations.

Men and women were eligible for honorary membership in the foreign missions commission when a donation of at least $50 was pledged in their name. The names of these distinguish individuals were published in The Missionary Herald. Honorary members were also invited to attend the annual meetings of the commission's board.

The first honorary member of the commission from Greenwich was the Rev. Dr. Isaac Lewis  (and here) of the Second Congregational Church in 1827. In subsequent years 19 other ministers were also named honorary members. These include the Rev. Chauncey Wilcox, the Rev. Joel Mann, the Rev. Platt Buffett, the Rev. S.B.S. Bissell, the Rev. Ebenezer Mead, the Rev. W. H.H. Murray and others.

Five missionaries were made honorary members of the commission by Greenwich parishes. All were associated with the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) Mission. Those from local families were Horton Knapp, his wife, Charlotte Close, and Dr. James William Smith. 

In addition, the people of the North Greenwich Congregational Church named Amos Starr Cooke and his wife, Juliet Montague (Cooke was the brother-in-law of the Rev. Chauncey Wilcox). Cooke and his wife were both teachers to the chief's and the alii (royal families) of the Hawaiian Kingdom. He co-founded Castle and Cooke, which remains as one of Hawaii's "Big Five" conglomerates today.

Twenty-one local women were instituted honorary members of the foreign missions commission. The first was Charlotte Close Knapp in 1838, followed by her mother, Sally Close, in 1841. 

Others included Letitia Ferris, Clarissa Munson, Anna S. Schofield, Amy Close, Adelia Knouse, Obadiah Mead and Martha L. Roberts.

The Rev. Joel Lindsley of the Second Congregational Church was designated a corporate member of the commission, and he represented his parish at numerous annual meetings of the American Board until his death.

Moses Christy was the superintendent of the Second Church's Sunday school. His sister, Helen, married Dr. Dauphin Osgood, and they embarked in 1869 as missionaries on board the "MorningStar" to work in China.

Honorary membership in the foreign missions commission was just one of the many ways that Greenwich residents have been honored for their work on behalf of others. For generations, the scope of their vision went far beyond the town's borders.

Jeffrey Bingham Mead is a free-lance writer and direct descendant of one of the towns founding families. He grew up the backcountry Greenwich.