Reverend Nathaniel Smith Richardson

#Middlebury

By DR. ROBERT L. RAFFORD

This woodcut image of Rev. Richardson is from The American Church Review, volume 42, July-December 1883, The Rev. Henry Mason Baum, editor.

While Middlebury does not have an official “hall of fame” as some of our neighbors do, I have striven over the years to discover and write about Middlebury women and men who have led exemplary lives, devoting themselves to notable causes, academic pursuits and accomplishments and American values. But some heroic lives, like that of today’s subject, are flawed in ways that make decisions about them more difficult.

The name Richardson has been with our town from its inception in 1807 and throughout the state for many years before that. Recently I came across the name of Nathaniel Smith Richardson, a Middlebury man who deserves recognition for his many accomplishments in the Episcopal ministry.

Nathaniel was born in Middlebury Jan. 8, 1810, the son of Nathaniel (1774-1868) and Comfort (Stone) (1777-1856) Richardson, and he died in Bridgeport, Conn., Aug. 7, 1883. Early in life he taught in a female seminary in Millbury, Mass. (when educational opportunities were scarce for women in the 19th and 20th centuries, special schools for women were founded; some, such as Mount Holyoke, became four-year colleges), and as an instructor in Greek in the University in Chapel Hill in North Carolina. Offered a professorship there, he declined and instead pursued the ministry.

He was graduated from Yale in 1834, attended General Theological Seminary (Episcopal) in New York City and was ordained a deacon in Trinity Church in Portland, Conn., in 1838. He was ordained a priest the following year in Christ Church in Watertown, where he served as assistant and then rector for seven years. While there, he compiled a historical sketch of the town.

He then served four years as rector of Christ Church in Derby and was esteemed by some colleagues to be the best parish priest they had ever known. The honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred on him by Racine College in 1849.

This image of Rev. Richardson’s gravestone is from FindAGrave.org.

In addition to his parish service, Nathaniel founded the “Church Review and Ecclesiastical Register” in 1848; he was a skilled writer and editor who demonstrated his scholarship and unyielding theological postures in that periodical for 20 years. He was rector of St. Paul’s Church in Bridgeport from 1868 to 1881. In 1879 he founded “The Guardian,” a quarterly review for ecclesiastical treatises, some his own, such as “Churchman’s Reasons for his Faith and Practice,” “Reasons Why I am a Churchman” and “Pastor’s Appeal on Confirmation.”

American history is strewn with racial, religious, ethnic and immigrant conflicts, and Richardson was a man of his times. He wrote “Why I am not a Papist” in 1847 and resisted the advent of Roman Catholicism and other “changes” in this country. We think of our world today as beset with chaos, confusion and global threats, but contrast today’s dread with some words from him in 1879: “Never in the history of the World and of the Church were the foundations of Social Order so threatened. Never were the attacks upon those foundations so insidious, so covert, so fearless and desperate as they are now.”

After his retirement, the succeeding editor of his Review departed from his misoneism and ushered in a more “Catholic” tone and spirit. Ultimately, his dedication to pastoral care, scholarship and service had a beneficial influence on his church and community.

Bob Rafford is the Middlebury Historical Society president and Middlebury’s municipal historian. To join or contact the society, visit MiddleburyHistoricalSociety.org or call Bob at 203-206-4717.