Thirtieth Anniversary Of Joseph Twichell's Installation

The church gave Joseph Twichell his house for his fiftieth birthday.

1. Deacon Williams was scheduled to lead the prayer meeting on December 19, 1895, as Twichell would be in Chicago attending a Congregational meeting.
2. Twichell would resign as senior pastor on December 10, 1911, three days before the 46^th anniversary of his installation.

1. The first drophead of the Courant article referred to Twichell’s installation as his “settlement.”
2. Twichell described the letter from Parker as a “very pleasant communication from his beloved brother and his people, with whom the people of the Asylum Hill Church have been in affectionate and Christian communion for thirty years.”

1. “At a weekly prayer meeting in the chapel of the Asylum Hill Congregational Church last evening, the services were appropriate to the celebration of the thirtieth anniversary of the installation of the Rev. Joseph H. Twichell in the pastorate of the church.”
2. “In his address Mr. Twichell said he knew as they were turning the thirtieth mile stone of their history it would be expected that he would make reference to it.  He felt the propriety of it.  did not care to refer to the event from the pulpit on Sunday.  He could be freer in the chapel where they were meeting.”
3. “It never suited his feelings to make references of a personal nature on Sunday. As a leader of public worship the minister should efface his personality.  The church is a far larger institution than the minister.”
4. “He took it that it was a fireside hour and that he could ramble off and gossip.”
5. “When he went into the ministry he felt he would do anything that turned up. He was not very ambitious.  His parish was beyond his expectations.  His disappointments were in himself.”
6. “Long pastorates have their disadvantages to the ministry and more to the parish.”
7. “Nothing that he could imagine would tempt him to go anywhere else. Every fiber in his body was accustomed to come here.”

1. The chapel seated 300-350 people.
2. This was the day before the official anniversary of his installation.

Unattributed, “Thirty Years a Pastor, “Hartford Courant, December 13, 1895, page 6.