Clinton was a part of the town of Kilingworth until 1838 when Clinton was incorporated as a town and began to keep its own records. Before 1838. all vitals records for Cinton would be recorded in the town of Killisworth. Towns in Connecticut have been required by law to keep birth, marriage, and death records since the mid 1600's. Although the earliest town governments were run by the local church, the towns were required to start keeping official town records that were not part of the church records. This occurred in the same time period that churches in Wethersfield and Hartford split, and the ministers of the churches and their loyal followers left the town and took the church records with them. When Connecticut colony was first settled the local governments were theocratic. The church was the governing power. After reading the early history of Hartford and Wethersfield, and the problems that arose with this system. The government was "democratic" in the sense that the people elected the civic leaders. However the only people who ere allowed to vote were the men who were members of the church for that location. The early history of this country and the theocratic local governments is very interesting. It sure gives another dimension to the insistence by some of the original colonies that the separation of church and state amendment be added to the U. S. Constitution before they would accept it. Although people with many different religious beliefs came to this country in the early 1600's, any man who wanted to be able to vote had to join the local congregational church. To join the church he had to be accepted into membership by the congregation, and that was not easy to do. By the 1650, the local congregational churches were refusing to accept everybody who wished to join, and this included the children of their own members. This was also a time when serious disagreements about church doctrine were raging. I'm not an expert on this, but I have been reading some about the early history of Hartford and Wethersfield. It's interesting reading when you live right where it al happened and you can recognize the places being described. Marilyn CT On Mon, 6 May 2002 02:23:29 EDT [email protected] writes: > Hello List.. > > I have just finished putting out the last of the Clinton Marriages > that I > have been able to find at the FHL. These marriages are from 1801 - > 1854. > (This is good as Clinton was not an official town until about 1832). > Turns > out, several people went in and registered themselves, their wives > and > children. > > This can be reached at: > http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~jcstreig/ > > I have also submitted the Birth and Death records from this first > volume onto > the regular subscriber contriubted data base option. I did not > really want > to put that on my website at this time. > > As usual, please let me know if there are errors on your family > names--the > Town Clerk's L and S just looked exactly alike... > > Regards, > Janece > [email protected] > > > ==== CTMIDDLE Mailing List ==== > Visit the Godfrey Memorial Library Website > http://www.godfrey.org > Middletown, Middlesex Co., CT > > ============================== > To join Ancestry.com and access our 1.2 billion online genealogy > records, go to: > http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=571&sourceid=1237 > >

Early Puritan New England wasn't technically a "theocracy" -- ministers were not allowed to run for political office, and ministers served at the pleasure of their congregations and could be (and often were) dismissed. A true theocracy requires rule by the clergy. Geneva under John Calvin was closer, but even it wasn't a true theocracy, as argued here: http://www.beelerspace.com/papers/Geneva_theocracy.htm Membership in the local church was a necessary but not sufficient *condition* for being elected a freeman and thus being allowed to vote in elections and town meetings. Such membership did not *automatically* confer freemanship on males of voting age -- in MBC freemanship was conferred by the General Court upon taking the freeman's oath, and probably also in Conn. Colony. The inclusion of the children of church members at least for baptism was the purpose of the 1662 Halfway Covenant in MBC. I expect that many churches in CT followed suit. The early churches were Puritan and Calvinist, not exactly "Congregational" in the modern sense. They were not completely autonomous in that they were watched by the colony and other churches to preclude doctrinal deviation. After the Saybrook Platform of 1708 many of the CT churches adopted a Presbyterian form of church governance: today that is congregation-presbytery-synod-General Assembly, but back then it probably was just congregation-presbytery. Finally, "separation of church and state" was not the objective of the Framers and you will not find it in any contemporary account. That phrase is Jefferson's, in a stroking letter to the Danbury Baptists when he was president. Jefferson, recall, was not at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 nor, apparently, was he involved in the drafting of the Bill of Rights, submitted by the 1st Congress to the states in 1789. James Madison was. The Framers meant precisely what they said in the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion ...." Most of them had grown up under established religions in their native colonies and all knew what they were. An established religion is a state religion, supported by taxpayers and often compelling attendance at services. There were too many competing denominations in the new United States for any one of them to be chosen as the national religion. Even so, the Congregational Church was the established religion of Massachusetts until about 1828. In Connecticut it was established until the 1818 state Constitution was adopted. It was only in the 20th Century that the Establishment Clause came to be interpreted so broadly as, for example, to preclude any religious symbols at all on government property. Christmas manger scenes were banished from municipal property. The Village of Zion (IL) was forced to remove a cross from its seal. (I expect eventually the State of Maryland will also be forced to remove the crosses from its flag http://faculty.goucher.edu/eng330/mdflag.gif EVEN THOUGH the flag is based on the coat of arms of George Calvert, 1st Lord Baltimore, and consists of the Calvert arms (gold/yellow and black) -- "paly of six Or and Sable a bend counterchanged" http://www.fotw.ca/images/us-md-lb.gif quartered with the Crossland arms (red and silver/white) of Cecil's mother's family -- quarterly Argent and Gules a cross botonny counterchanged." http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~crosslin/images/bottony.gif The cross bottony in the latter probably was a pun on the family name; such puns were common in arms. Interestingly, the Maryland flag and state arms are the only ones in the US that are purely heraldic. I also discovered today that the arms of New Maryland, NB (founded by Maryland Loyalists) are based on the MD state arms, and additionally allude to the 1821 Wetmore-Street duel fought in New Maryland, in which my GGG Uncle George Ludlow Wetmore, a barrister, found out the hard way that he couldn't shoot as straight as George Frederick Street, also a barrister. Those were the days! when lawyers shot out their disagreements :-) http://www.village.newmaryland.nb.ca/main/cofa.htm Now, were we talking about the Puritans? :-) Yrs aye, Warren ----- Original Message ----- From: <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, May 06, 2002 4:22 AM Subject: Re: [CTMID] More Clinton Marriages | Clinton was a part of the town of Kilingworth until 1838 when Clinton was | incorporated as a town and began to keep its own records. Before 1838. | all vitals records for Cinton would be recorded in the town of | Killisworth. Towns in Connecticut have been required by law to keep | birth, marriage, and death records since the mid 1600's. Although the | earliest town governments were run by the local church, the towns were | required to start keeping official town records that were not part of | the church records. This occurred in the same time period that churches | in Wethersfield and Hartford split, and the ministers of the churches and | their loyal followers left the town and took the church records with | them. When Connecticut colony was first settled the local governments | were theocratic. The church was the governing power. | | After reading the early history of Hartford and Wethersfield, and the | problems that arose with this system. The government was "democratic" in | the sense that the people elected the civic leaders. However the only | people who ere allowed to vote were the men who were members of the | church for that location. The early history of this country and the | theocratic local governments is very interesting. It sure gives another | dimension to the insistence by some of the original colonies that the | separation of church and state amendment be added to the U. S. | Constitution before they would accept it. Although people with many | different religious beliefs came to this country in the early 1600's, any | man who wanted to be able to vote had to join the local congregational | church. To join the church he had to be accepted into membership by the | congregation, and that was not easy to do. By the 1650, the local | congregational churches were refusing to accept everybody who wished to | join, and this included the children of their own members. This was also | a time when serious disagreements about church doctrine were raging. I'm | not an expert on this, but I have been reading some about the early | history of Hartford and Wethersfield. It's interesting reading when you | live right where it al happened and you can recognize the places being | described. | | Marilyn | CT