Record of Baptisms In the Mission of New Cambridge, Connecticut - 1747 to 1800

"New Cambridge" was the ancient name of the present-day town of Bristol, Connecticut. This "mission" later became St. Matthew's Episcopal Parish and ended up within the boundaries of the neighboring town of Plymouth. Francis Atwater's History of Plymouth tells some of the story:

"In 1790, when the new meeting house was built at Plymouth Hollow, some of the members of the parish, displeased because it was not built on Town Hill, seceded and helped to build St. Matthew's Church, in East Plymouth. Being situated in that part of Plymouth contiguous to the towns of Bristol, Harwintown, and Burlington, each of those places contributed to the birth and maintenance of St. Matthew's parish and church."

K.A. Pritchard copied these records from the manuscript of Alanson Welton in August 1897. At Mr. Welton's request, the original manuscript, which he transcribed from the original records in 1868, was deposited in the Bristol Public Library.

Please pay close attention to the column headings in the result pages. We have followed the column format of the original, which placed the last name of the minister next to the first name of the person baptized. The last name of the person baptized appears in the column titled Parent Name.

Full names of the ministers in this record are as follows: Rev. William Gibbs of Simsbury; Rev. Ichabod Camp of Middletown; Rev. Richard Mansfield; Rev. Christopher Newton of Huntington; Rev. James Nichols; Rev. James Scovill of Waterbury; Rev. Ashbel Baldwin; Seth Hart; and Alexander B. Griswold. Also listed are a Rev. Bronson of Waterbury; and two ministers who are identified only by last name — Butler and Andrews.

The original manuscript is part of the R. Stanton Avery Collections. It can be viewed by NEHGS members at the our research library in Boston. The call number is MSS SL BRI 30/1.

To locate additional genealogy and local history resources, search our library catalog.