ORANGE CONG. CHURCH 47
1805 1905
Historical Address and Greeting
of the
Mother Church, Milford, Ct., to the Youngest Daughter, the Congregational Church, Orange, Ct., by the Pastor of the First Church, Milford, Ct.,
Rev. H. H. Morse.
MR. MODERATOR, MEMBERS AND FRIENDS OF THE CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH OF ORANGE :-Nothing, I am sure, can be pleasanter than for a mother to visit at the beautiful and prosperous home of her youngest daughter. No human love is greater than that of a mother. So the mother, the First Church of Christ in Milford, rejoices and counts it even as her own that her daughter's joy is today so full. As requested, I am to tell about the ancestry and early life of that mother, of whose history every child of hers has good reason to be proud. The ancestors arrived from England in Boston, June 26, 1637. They were earnestly pressed to remain in Massachusetts, large offers of land being made them. But they had in mind to form independent settlements according to their own religious and civil ideas. Under the explorations of Eaton, in September, 1737, a favorable region for settlement was found along the Quinnipiac. In the spring of 1638, the two parties, under the respective leaderships of Rev. John Davenport and Rev. Peter Prudden, sailed from Boston, and in a fortnight arrived at New Haven. Their first Sabbath's services, April 18, 1638, were