REV. SYLVANUS P. MARVIN

Rev. Sylvanus P. Marvin, for nearly forty years the beloved pastor of the Woodbridge Congregational church and a prominent figure in his denomination in Connecticut, was a descendant of an old Connecticut family. He traced his ancestry to Reinold Marvin, who was baptized in 1593 in St. Mary's church, on the Great Bentley Green in England, and came to America in 1638 and settled first at Hartford and later at Farmington, from which place he removed to Lyme, where he spent the greater part of his life. His descendants have been prominent in that locality to the present day.

Dan Marvin (H), one of his great-great-grandsons, married the second daughter of John Mather, a relative of Cotton and Increase Mather, Colonial celebrities, whose second son was Deacon John Marvin, the father of our subject. Deacon John Marvin married Lydia Hull Pratt, daughter of Captain Samuel Pratt, a prominent man of Essex, Connecticut. He was for twenty-five years a teacher in the public schools, and was clerk of the town of Say brook for nearly twenty years, judge of probate, and at one time member of the state legislature, a man honored and beloved for his Christian integrity, his urbanity and his high ideals of life.

Sylvanus P. Marvin, second son of Deacon John, was born in Lyme, March 17, 1822, and at the ago of fourteen years removed with the family to Deep River, Connecticut. He early attended Essex Academy, and was graduated from Yale in 1847, and from Yale The-ological Seminary in 1850. In recounting some of his school day associates we note the following: Henry Hadley, uncle of the president of Yale, valedictorian of his class; Rev. N. A. Hyde, D. D., the nestor of Congregationalism in Indiana and founder of the First Congregational church in Indianapolis, Indiana; Rev. William T. Reynolds, the beloved pastor of the Congregational church at North Haven for some twenty-five years; Rev. James L. Willard, D. D., for some forty years pastor of the Westville church of New Haven; H. G. Jessup, professor of botany in Dartmouth College; Rev. James B. Cleaveland, who married Miss Elizabeth Jocelyn, the poetess, author of "No Sects in Heaven"; and E. I. Sanford, superior court judge of Connecticut. While connected with the Theological Seminary he taught three years in the celebrated General William H. Russell Military School of New Haven.

In 1851 Mr. Marvin received a call and was ordained and installed pastor of the Congregational church at Jamestown, Ohautauqua county, New York, where he remained six years, doing much to strengthen the Congregational churches in that section of the state, and resigned his pastorate much to the regret of the church. After he left Jamestown he received a unanimous call to the First Congregational church of Franklin, Delaware county, New York. He declined the call, but continued to labor with them without installation for some three years, during which time there was an extensive revival in the church and sixty united with the church at one time. He was also instrumental in the formation of the Delaware Association of Congregational Churches in that and the adjoining counties. Alter leaving Franklin he spent between two and three years with the First Congregational church of Torrington, Connecticut, which he served during the later years of the Civil war was an emergency charge, the congregation thinking that without a leader (there being no little dissension among them) they could not hold together.

In 1865 Mr. Marvin received a unanimous call and was installed over the Woodbridge Congregational church, of which he was pastor until his death, at which time he was one of the oldest pastors in the state. Many improvements were made in the church property during Mr. Marvin's pastorate. The house of worship is surrounded by beautiful grounds, which were originally some five acres in extent, and on the Sunday preceding the first election that took place after he entered upon the duties of his charge our subject requested that each man plant a tree on the church green before casting his ballot. As a result some ninety trees were brought, and handsome trees now adorn the grounds, which he had already caused to be enclosed with a neat fence. To the church itself a lecture room and ladiess parlor have been added, at a cost of some two thousand dollars, and a pipe organ, the gift of Mrs. Mary Clark Treat, has been put in. Mr. Marvin was a member of the school board and superintendent of schools for some ten or fifteen years, securing a library and a Johnson's Cyclopedia for each district.

On May 27, 1851, Mr. Marvin married Miss Sylvina Buell, daughter of Miles and Lucinda (Plum) Buell, of Clinton, Connecticut. She passed away on January 20, 1902. Two sons were born of this union. John Miles is senior partner and general manager of the Globe Silk Works. New Haven. He married Adella M. Smith, daughter of Isaac T. and Lucretia (Sperry) Smith, of New Haven, and they have one daughter, Grace Edna. He is deacon of the Dwight Place Congregational church of New Haven. A more complete sketch of John M. Marvin is found elsewhere in this work. Edward Reynold, the younger son died when ten years of age.

On May 27, 1901, Mr. and Mrs. Marvin celebrated the golden anniversary of their wedding at the parsonage. There were many guests from the surrounding towns, from New Haven, New York city and Springfield, as well as the parishioners; and many handsome gifts besides between three and four hundred dollars in gold, testified to the love and esteem in which the pastor and his wife were held by his parishioners and other friends. A poetical tribute from one of their old Franklin parishioners, Mrs. Whitney, and also one from Mrs. E. Jocelyn Cleaveland, added to the interest of the occasion, which was also enlivened with excellent music by a string orchestra from New Haven. Mr. Marvin had a fine gold-headed cane, presented by the young men of the church on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the beginning of his pastorate. There was also a great gathering on his seventy-sixth birthday, when a beautiful crayon portrait of him, presented by the young ladies' society, was hung in the lecture room of the church, and on numerous other occasions the members of the parish showed high appreciation of his services and a personal esteem, warm and genuine, for their pastor and his wife.

The family have always adhered to republican ideas. On attaining his majority Mr. Marvin became a whig, and at the birth of the republican party he joined its ranks. He took great interest in gathering historical data, and from time to time delivered interesting papers and published articles on the progress of events in church and state. He published, by request, a memorial sermon delivered before the Redshaw Post of the Grand Army, Ansonia, Connecticut, twenty-fifth anniversary of his settlement in Woodbridge, one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the church, funeral sermon of Rev. J. L. Willard, D. D., of New Haven, and of Rev. W. T. Reynolds, of North Haven, lecture before the New Haven Historical Society, published in Volume VI, of their papers. He was widely known and highly respected, not only by the people of his own congregation, but by those of New Haven and the surrounding towns. Rev. Marvin died on November 24, 1904.

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