In order to have my history complete I must give my reason for building the Wooster Place Church, as my motives have been misconstrued by many persons, I will make a short statement of what I know to be true. It is well known that with the exception of one, all the Congregational churches in New Haven, were located west of the centre of the city. The majority of the inhabitants lived in the eastern section. Meeting after meeting was called by the different churches to consider the importance of building a church in the eastern part. It was strongly advocated by the ministers and many others, that this part of the city was rapidly filling up, a great deal of manufacturing was carried on there, and the strangers who were constantly coming in would fall into other denominations. I heard their speeches advocating this course with great pleasure, as I lived in the eastern part of the city, had a long distance to go to attend church, and nearly all the workmen in my employ lived in the same section. The church which I have mentioned as the only one located east of the centre, was in a very prosperous condition. By the talent, popularity and piety of its minister, as his church and congregation believed, he had filled the church to overflowing. There were no slips to be bought in that church. We heard this minister say that he could spare thirty families from his congregation to build up a new church. In view of all the facts, I started a subscription paper, in as good faith as I ever did anything in my life, for the raising of funds to build an edifice. The subscription was headed by myself with five thousand dollars and many large sums were added to it. A number of wealthy men lived near the contemplated place of building the new church, who belonged to other churches. It was supposed, by what their ministers had said in public and in private, that they would use their influence in advancing this good work, and to have some of their members join in it; but for some reason they changed their minds. I heard that the minister of the church located in the eastern section (which I mentioned before,) had got up a subscription paper to raise ten or twelve thousand dollars to beautify the front of his church, raise a higher steeple, and make some other alterations that he thought important. I was told that he called on the men who lived in the locality where we proposed erecting the new church, with his subscription, and that they subscribed to carry out his plans. Some of those who had subscribed to build the new church, after he had made these calls, wrote me that they wished their names crossed off from my paper—Others came and told me the same thing, and wished their names erased. I began at this time to understand that there were influences working against our enterprise and that this way of building a church must be given up. I however, went forward myself, as is very well known, and built a church second to none in New England. I should have built one that would not have cost one half of the money, had I acted on my own judgement, but I was influenced by a few others differently. I paid more than twenty thousand dollars out of my own pocket into this church.
Public opinion in the community was, that if the several ministers had given their influence in favor of this matter, a church would have been built by subscription. They could very easily have influenced their friends in that part of the city to unite in this enterprise without detriment to their own congregation. Had this course been taken, it is evident that by this time it would have been a large and prosperous church.
A correspondent of the Independent in writing upon the growth of Congregationalism, in New Haven, had a great deal to say about the Wooster Place church—calling the man that built it, "a sagacious mechanic, who built it on speculation etc." Yet; added "if they had called a young man for its Pastor from New England, it might have succeeded after all."
It is well known that the Congregational denomination has made but very small advancement compared with others for the last twenty years. It is supposed that the inhabitants of New Haven have doubled in number during that time; but only one small Mission church has been added to the Congregational churches. Four Episcopal churches have been built, and filled with worshipers, many of whom formerly belonged to Congregational families. The Methodists have built two large churches, and more than trebled in number. The Baptists have more than doubled, and now own and occupy the Wooster Place church. And to have kept pace with the others, the Congregational denomination should now have as many as three more large churches.