Dedicatory service held at Asylum Avenue Baptist Church

1. A. Judson Sage’s sermon was based on Psalm 20, Verse 5.
2. Flowers were displayed in baskets and vases; these were “procured and arranged in good taste by the ladies of the society.”

The cornerstone for the building was laid on October 14, 1871.

Sunday service would be held in the church tomorrow.

The church had not been formally organized at this point, and a meeting on that subject was scheduled for this evening at “7 ½ o’clock.”

1. “Under this topic, the speaker discussed the so-called natural religion of the present day, and the dangers and tendencies of free-thinking.”
2. “These were a few of the thoughts suggested, but this meagre sketch does not do justice to the subject or the speaker. He was listened to with great interest and pleasure.”

1. Robert Turnbull was secretary of the Connecticut Baptist State Convention and former pastor of the First Baptist Church.
2. Amasa Howard was pastor of the Washington Street Baptist Church.
3. A. Judson Sage was the current pastor of the First Baptist Church.
4. Cephas B. Crane was the pastor of the South Baptist Church.
5. G. A. Simonson was pastor of the Windsor Avenue Baptist Church.
6. Jonathan Brace was an editor of the Religious Herald. He had held several pastorates during his career, but he had withdrawn from active ministry due to his and his wife’s health.

1. “He spoke of Cortez, of Cartier, of De Soto, and others who had set up the Roman Catholic standard, and it had never to this day been removed from the places where they had established it. The pilgrims, two hundred and fifty years ago, set up the christian standard in this, to them, strange land, and though they long ago passed away, their good influence remains, and the standard now floats over this christian land.”

Unattributed.  “The Asylum Avenue Baptist Church,” Hartford Daily Courant, October 21, 1872, page 2.

Unattributed.  “Fire totally destroys Asylum Ave. Baptist Church; Loss $125,000,” Hartford Courant, February 2, 1931, page 1.