Person:Bezaleel Pinneo (1)

Bezaleel Pinneo's two wives, Mary Porter Stone and Leah Hill, were second cousins.

"REV. BEZALEEL PINNEO 1767-1849 He graduated at Dartmouth College. Pastor of this Church 1796-1849. He baptized 1204, Received on profession 600, Buried 1126. He was eminently Discreet, Faithful and Successful. His first American Ancestor was a Huguenot Refugee. The tablet is of polished, light gray, Knoxville marble, 3 ft. 1 in. wide and 2 ft. high, with projecting, square corners, chamfered edges, inscribed without color and mounted on a background of polished, pink, Knoxville marble 3 ft. 6 in. wide and 2 ft. 5 in. high. The tablet was the gift of H. O. Pinneo and other children and grandchildren of Rev. Bezaleel Pinneo.

It is indeed a very malignant wind that blows no one good; and religious persecution is often thought such a tempest. When Saul of Tarsus made such desperate efforts to stamp out the torch of faith in Jerusalem, he little knew they were destined to act like Balaam's curse and light an hundred altars to the Crucified where one had burned before. Romanist persecutions in France drove the Huguenot refugees to different lands, among them Jaques Pignaud, ancestor of Rev. Bezaleel Pinneo, seventh pastor of this Church.

His family name, originally Del Pino, Italian for the Pine Tree, was quite indicative of his appearance, tall and erect, a pine from the New England forest, he is doubtless remembered by some present. A near family connection of his, William Williams, was one of the immortal signers of the Declaration of Independence, while his father and brothers were more actively engaged in our memorable war, the former as captain and the latter as soldiers. Mr. Pinneo educated many for the ministry, among them Nettleton, the great revivalist. Sweet was the old time relationship of master and pupil which fostered the latter's individuality. He was then in no danger of being run through an intellectual machine shop, or turned loose upon the world bearing a theological trade-mark.

The celebrated Dr. Johnson on being told that some ministers did not think their calling a difficult one, replied that if they didn't he was sorry for them. Many of us have since learned that it is a difficult thing to be faithful to conscience and a sense of duty in any calling. All that is purely personal in any life is sure to die; men are immortal to us only in their works and then but by sacrificing almost all the world holds dear, thus illustrating our Lord's words 'Whoso loseth his life for my sake shall find it.'

In a nobler sense than the purely superstitious, places are Haunted by the spirits of those who made them remarkable. Who does not think of our own sweet spirited Irving when sailing up the Hudson whose beauties he painted, whose legends he wove into golden wreaths in story? Well might the spirits of the departed fondly yearn over the scene of their earthly labors; and I fancy yearn over the scene of their earthly labors; and I fancy that the eyes of that dear old pastor are lovingly bent upon us, his descendants and his successors, as we celebrate to-day our triumphs and thank God for our blessings.

It would ill become us to indulge in any fulsome praise of our revered grandparent, but we should be alike insensible to the blessings of a Godly parentage and wanting in feeling if we did not hold him in fondest remembrance for his faithful pastorate here during fifty-three years of an eminently useful life and successful ministry. In behalf of the children and grandchildren of the Rev. Bezaleel Pinneo, I present this Church a simple, and I trust, appropriate tablet to his memory; of such was it written, 'Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord and their works do follow them.'

It has been made my pleasant duty to announce to the donors of the tablet that has just been unveiled, the acceptance of it by the members of this Church, and their heartfelt gratitude for it. Their pleasure in the receipt of it is enhanced by the fact that it is the gift of cherished friends, who, like themselves, were dedicated to God in baptism within these walls, instructed in divine things from this sacred desk, and welcomed to the household of faith at this sacramental table. But the gift is valued chiefly as being an appropriate and permanent memorial of the honored and saintly pastor whose name it bears.

The first six pastors of this Church were of English extraction. Two of them were born in England and belonged to the noble company of the Pilgrim Fathers. The other four, though born in this country, had the blood of the Pilgrims in their veins, and the principles of the Pilgrims in their hearts. Mr. Pinneo was of French extraction and had the blood of the Huguenots in his veins; than which no better blood was ever brought to these shores. His great grandfather, James Pineau, (for thus his name was written,) belonged to the great army of refugees from the bloody persecution that followed the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Among them were some of the most Illustrious men whose names adorn our national annals.

Bezaleel Pinneo was born in Lebanon, Conn., July 28, 1769, was graduated at Dartmouth College in 1791, and installed pastor of this Church, October 26, 1796.

The prominent features of his character and ministry are better known to many who hear me than they are to me. Some of you sat for years under his preaching; but his active labors had ceased when mine began. Yet I did know him well, as a man, as a Christian, as a friend, and especially as a friend to me. That is, I knew him by experience—the best sort of knowledge. And as my intimate relations to him then have become the occasion of my speaking to you now, I shall be pardoned, I trust, for making this reference to them. I recall with much distinctness, and with some emotion, my first entrance and welcome to his dwelling, which afterward became my home for a period. It was in the summer of 1840—forty-nine years ago. My father, a short time before, had been called suddenly to his final rest. His family were scattered, and there was not a spot on earth that I could call my home. But I was made to feel at once that I was in a second home, with a second father. As a father, rather than as a colleague, I ever regarded him. From his rich stores of wisdom and knowledge, accumulated by an experience of forty-four years in the ministry, I was permitted to draw at pleasure; and I did draw freely. To his hearty sympathy, his judicious counsel, his generous assistance, and the serene beauty of his daily life, I was indebted for much of the pleasure and success which attended my short ministry here; and I rejoice that I have this unexpected opportunity to acknowledge, in this pulpit and in this presence, a debt which I did not and could not pay.

This Memorial Tablet sketches in four words an outline of Mr. Pinneo's character* and ministry:—'EMINENTLY DISCREET, FAITHFUL AND SUCCESSFUL.' His keen penetration, his sound and cautious judgment, his practical sagacity—in a word, that invaluable but indefinable endowment which we call common sense, contributed more than any or all of his other natural gifts to the peace and fruitfulness of his ministry, and to the continuance of it through the long period of fifty-three years. 'Eminently faithful.' So the Tablet testifies. So the whole community testified, when I was associated with him. So the remnant of his congregation who continue to this day would testify, I am confident, if they should testify at all. His time, his talents, his acquirements, his influence—all that he was and all that he had were employed in the work that God had given him to do. Some things which some pastors do, nowadays, he did not attempt; for he had read and had evidently adopted the motto: 'This one thing I do.' And he did it faithfully, and with all his might. 'Eminently successful,' the Tablet adds, and the records confirm the statement. There were no great excitements under his preaching, for he was not a sensational preacher, nor a very impassioned preacher. He was a logical preacher, an instructive preacher, a biblical preacher. He did not seek to produce excitements, but to commend himself to every man's conscience in the sight of God. And there were frequent revivals, some powerful revivals, during his ministry; and the yearly average of admissions to the Church was greater than it had ever been before. Moreover, his style of preaching was peculiarly adapted to prepare, and it did prepare the soil and plant the seed for harvests which sprang up and were gathered after his active ministry ceased. Of about one hundred and fifty members who were added to the Church as fruits of the memorable revival of 1843, more than eighty being received on a single Sabbath, a considerable number, as I believed then, and still believe, were the fruit of seed sown by his hand.

But it was not in the pulpit alone, nor among his flock alone, that the results of his ministry were seen. In the dwellings of the more than three hundred families of his congregation, in the schools, the workshops, the streets, everywhere, his benign influence was felt. Such a ministry as he exercised among you for forty-four years, such a life as he lived among you for fifty-three years, could not but leave an impress upon this community which will not be effaced to the end of time. 'He being dead yet speaketh.' He speaks, and will continue to speak, from the lips of that silent but eloquent tablet, to successive congregations of worshipers in this sanctuary and its successors for centuries to come. He speaks, and will continue to speak, through the lips and lives of multitudes who have gone from this church to churches in its vicinity, and in distant parts of this land, and in other lands, carrying with them and transmitting to others the sacred lessons which they learned from his lips. The streams of influence which such a man sets in motion do not cease to flow when he dies. They are living streams, and they never cease. They are like the brook which Tennyson represents as singing on its way:

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2} "81. Rev. Bezaliel⁴ Pinneo, in Pineo, Andrew R. The First Four Generations of the Pinneo/Pineo Family: Being the descendants of James Pinneo (Jacques Pineau). (Seabrook, New Hampshire: Andrew R. Pineo, 1995)
   17.

   "81. Rev. Bezaliel⁴ Pinneo (James³, James²) born July 28, 1769 Lebanon, CT, died Sep. 16, 1849, married (1) Sep. 4, 1800 Mary Porter Stone, dau. of Rev. Timothy & Eunice (Williams) Stone. She was born May 26, 1780, died Nov. 5, 1816. Rev. Bezaliel Pinneo was named after Prof. Bezaliel Woodward, an intimate friend of his father and the first professor of mathematics at Dartmouth College. Rev. Bezaliel graduated Dartmouth College in Aug. 1791, then taught school at Colchester and Wethersfield, CT. After studying theology with Rev. Dr. Samuel [error for John] Smalley of Berlin, CT, Bezaliel was ordained pastor of the First Congregational Church of Milford, CT. He served as such from 1796 to 1839, and remained in a Pastoral relation for the last ten years of his life."

2. ↑ Proceedings at the Celebration of the Two Hundred & Fiftieth Anniversary: of the First Church of Christ, Milford, Ct., August 25th. 1689. (Amenia, New York: Press of Evening Sentinel, 1890)
   68-74.
3. ↑ Rev Bezaleel Pinneo, in Find A Grave.