Rev. James A. Smith was settled in 1832; and dismissed in 1837. Mr. Smith was greatly beloved by his people and much blessed in his labors. He still lives to enjoy an honored old age in the state of Connecticut. Other denominations soon came in and divided the people, so that the society was weak for a time and dependant upon foreign aid. But it has become one of our efficient churches, and has enjoyed an able ministry.
The early ministry of Rochester was valuable. Many were there trained up for heaven. But the decline in after years was alarming, for the reason that the people were not alarmed. Intemperance with its host of kindred vices, gradually and imperceptibly made advances, until drinking was common and every fifth man in town, it was well known, was intemperate. The Sabbath was desecrated; the house of God forsaken, or but thinly attended, in which the sheep upon the common took shelter from the hot sun of summer. The old minister who had served half a century, was closing his labors. The church was small, numbers having left and united with the Methodist Society, which about this time was formed in the place. In this state of things, a young man was raised up in the place to save the church. The son of a man of wealth, became a subject of renewing grace in a revival in Dartmouth College. His attention was turned to the ministry. While pursuing his studies at Andover, he began to preach to the people of his native town. They became interested in him, and gathered into the house of worship until it was filled. He kept up the interest by frequent calls upon the people. Upon his little white horse on Saturday, he would call upon half of the parish or more. His calls would be only at the door, with inquiries for the welfare of the family, and whether they would be at meeting on the morrow, and then he would be on his way to other families. Many young people became interested and united with the church, which was much enlarged. After some three years Mr. Upham was called to a professorship in Bowdoin College. He left in the fall of 1825. He had little regard to salary, and after he left contributed fifty dollars a year to his successors. He was a man of retiring habits, and would never preach after he left his pastorate. But few men we are constrained to believe, have, in a most unostentatious manner, done more for the benefit of there race, than he.
Rev. Isaac Willey succeeded Mr. Upham in Rochester in January, 1826. Near the close of the first year of his ministry he was laid aside some months by sickness. Under the labors of the young man who supplied his place in the parish, numbers of young people became thoughtful of their condition as sinners, and in after years have shown that they then commenced a religious life. Efforts were made to stay the progress of intemperance by calling the attention of the people to the evils which they were suffering from it. These efforts were aided by the frequent deaths from this cause, and not unfrequently in the principal families in the place. The religious influence greatly aided the work. Efforts were made to ascertain the supply of the word of God in the families, and the destitution was found to be great. The effort was extended through the county, which then embraced what is now three counties. A society was formed for the purpose, the first in the State. Every town was carefully explored, and supplied, and in the course of the work there were found in the county twenty-two hundred families living without the word of God, and were supplied. In the progress of this work one objection often urged, was, that the Bible when given would be sold for rum. Such a case occurred in Rochester, the Bible was bought by an old woman in Barrington, an adjoining town, who lived a hermits life back in the field, where the following winter men were getting lumber, a man broke his leg, and was carried into the old woman's hut where the Bible was, and where he laid out his thirty days. The word of God is good seed wherever sown. There the Bible was read, and became the life of
