Congregational society. The history of this church is much like that of the average New England body. The minister was chosen for life, one of these pastors serving for a period of forty years. In the course of time there was a division in the church, which led to the organization of a new society which was of the Episcopal faith. While the circumstances attending the inception of this new body were to some extend unpleasant, yet the feeling manifested toward it was never so bitter as that which marked the incoming of the Baptists and Methodists. Happily the old-time bitterness has long since passed away; but the pioneers of these later faiths have left their reports of the days when anything but a good Christian spirit prevailed. The good old pastor of the Congregational church, whose custom it was on the first of January of each year to preach a retrospective New Year's sermon, in which he differentiated "Baptists, Methodists and other heather" from the children of the true church, no doubt was inspired by the best of motives; but this fling at the members of these two denominations did not prevent them from coming in larger numbers, until the most powerful influence in the town to-day is that exerted by the Baptist educational institutions, while a large part of the mercantile and farming wealth of the community is found attached to the Methodist denomination. The religious "warning off" was not the only one which was used, for as late as 1839 the overseers of the poor issued to the constable the following order: "Whereas, we the undersigned, overseers of the poor of Granville township have received information that there has lately come into the said township a certain poor man, named Robinson, who is not a legal resident thereof, and will be likely to become a township charge; you are therefore, hereby commanded forthwith to warn the said Robinson, with his family, to depart out of said township. And of this warrant make serve and return. Given under our hands this first day of March, 1839." This poor man was Marius R. Robinson, a prominent antislavery lecturer, the companion of Theodore D. Weld; and it is quite likely that the unwelcome sentiments expressed in his lectured were more persuasive to the Granville magistrates than any real fear that he might become a public charge. For Granville's slavery history was peculiar. On one day, James G. Birney, the apostle of freedom, was chased through the streets by a howling mob, which pelted him with eggs for a mile, as he rode slowing along the highway upon a horse whose mane and tail had just been shaved. On another day a fugitive slave found a safe retreat and a good meal, as he stopped in his flight to Canada. The sentiment of the majority for many years was against the slave. The minority were officers of the Underground Railroad, which had several stations in the township. Twenty years produced a wonderful change in popular ideas, so that when the war broke out it is probable that the large majority of Granville people were ready to fight for freedom. In just such a community would the effect of the Fugitive Slave Law be most felt in the change of public sentiment. Since the establishment of the Republican party, Granville has been the "banner township," sometimes indeed being the only township i the county to vote by a majority for that party. Liquor drinking is now much frowned upon in Granville. Village local option as followed by township local option, the feeling being quite marked against the saloon. There is an occasional arrest of some proprietor of a "boot-leg-saloon," to use the expressive local phrase, but the town has an exceptional record for temperance. Distilleries were quite numerous in the early days; whiskey is frequently mentioned in the records of the company; and according to the custom of the times, the pioneers drank freely. But the development of temperance feeling was very rapid, and perhaps for half of the history of
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