Tragedy and Poetry: Montville Congregational Church

During the early 1800’s, our newly formed nation entered a profound religious revival known as the Second Great Awakening.  This Awakening began about 10 years after the Revolutionary War and lasted into the 1830’s.  Many historians view this specific revival as the foundation of American doctrines, culminating with the advent of our national identity.

By 1823, the Montville church was under the leadership of Reverend Abishai Alden who was installed in 1803. During his Sunday afternoon sermon on May 25, 1823, a horrible storm blew through New London County. According to accounts published in the The New-London Gazette, and General Advertiser, “the Congregational Church was struck with lighting and two persons were killed, three others materially injured by lightning, and several others struck down by shock. The killed were the widow Betsey Bradford (her former husband was Perez Bradford), and a child of Capt. John R. Comstock.”

The lightning hit the steeple, causing windows to be shattered, and the ceiling to collapse on the seated parishioners.  Chaos must have reigned as terrified and confused people tried to help the dying and injured while still reflecting about the halted sermon given by Reverend Alden.  This scene of hysteria and fear of divine intervention inspired the following poem written by “Y” and published in the Connecticut Mirror a month later:

The Sabbath morn came sweetly on,
The sunbeams mildly shone upon
Each rock, and tree, and flower,-
And floating on the southern gale,
The clouds seem’d gloriously to sail
Along the heavens, as if to hail
That calm and holy hour. 

By winding path and alley green
The handsome and the young were seen
To join the gathering throng-
And with slow step and solemn look,
The elders of the village took
Their way, and while with age they shook
Went reverently along.

They meet: ‘The sweet psalm tune,’ they raise,
They Join their grateful hears, and praise
The Maker they adore.
They met in holy joy - but they,
Grieve now who saw his wrath that day,
And sadly went they all away
And better than before.

There was one cloud that overcast
The valley and the hill, nor past
Like other mists away;
It mov’d not round the circling sweep
Of the clear sky, but dark and deep
Came down upon them, sheer and steep
Where they had met to pray.

One single flash: it rent the spiro,
And pointed downward all its fire.-
What could its vengeance stay”
Here was an aged head, -and there
Was beauty in its youth, and fair
Floated the young locks of her hair-
It call’d them both away.

The Sabbath eve went sweetly down.
Its’ parting sunbeams mildly shone
Upon each rock and flower –
And gently blew the southern gale,
But on it was a voice of wail,
And eyes were wet and cheeks were pale,
In that sad evening hour.

The church was rebuilt within a year and newspaper articles reported that “more than one hundred were added to the church.”  Ministries throughout our nation used the tragedy at the Congregational Church as an example for many religious revivals during the Second Great Awakening. By 1826, the church membership dismissed Reverend Alden.  The legacy of the lightning strike continued to haunt Montville for many decades.