USA > Massachusetts > Massachusetts Episcopalians 1607-1957 > Part 1
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13
Epistepalians
60
DUDLEY
6885 $12.50
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY
3 1833 07441 9588
GC 974.4 T97M
MASSACHUSETTS EPISCOPALIANS
1607 - 1957
Dudley Tyng, B.D., Ph.D.
Published by the
Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts
Printed at the DELMO PRESS Pascoag, R. I.
I.
Foreword by the Rt. Rev. Norman B. Nash Retired Bishop of Massachusetts
Coming to its hundred and seventy-fifth anniversary the old Diocese of Massachusetts is fortunate in its historians. Mr. Berry's admirable account of the nineteenth century episcopates of Bishops Eastburn and Paddock is now followed by Dr. Tyng's excellent account of the whole history of the Diocese, from its feeble revival of Episcopalianism during the quarter century following the Revo- lution to its strength today, when it ranks second or third in the various statistical criteria of size in the American Church.
The story so competently and lucidly told is one of steady growth which has preserved the Evangelical character of early days, developing into the Liberal Evangelicalism which begins with Phillips Brooks, and still prevails.
The Diocese has been blessed with three great episcopates, those of Griswold, Lawrence and Sherrill. The rest of us may perhaps be estimated as not incompetent, certainly all have been devoted. One may look forward to the next twenty-five years which complete our second century in a confident hope that the God of our fathers will lead our beloved Diocese to greater strength and wider vision under Bishops Stokes and Lawrence and their successors.
Norman B. Nash
II.
- PREFACE -
My sincere gratitude goes to Bishop Nash for his careful scrutiny of the manuscript of this book and for his recommendation that it be published by the Diocese. This was made possible through a grant by the Diocesan Library Trustees from the Edmund F. Slafter Fund. Dr. Slafter was a long-time Registrar of the Diocese whose time, talents and money helped mightily in developing the Library. The Rev. John R. Dallinger, now Registrar for nearly thirty years, suggested the use of the accumulated interest of the Fund for the publication of this history.
I would like also to record my appreciation of their encourage- ment in this kind of historical writing by the present Bishop of Rhode Island, the Rt. Rev. John S. Higgins, and by the former Arch- deacon of that Diocese, the Rev. Anthony R. Parshley.
Partly because of this, the manuscript of "Rhode Island Epis- copalians 1635-1953" saw the light in that year. A manuscript on the church in Vermont awaits future financing. Other writing on New England Episcopal history is in progress.
Anyone interested in pursuing this subject further is recom- mended to read Calvin R. Bachelder's two volumes on the "Eastern Diocese," with its accounts of various parishes from colonial times on to the early 1860s. An excellent account, based largely on Bachelder's "The Planting of the Prayer Book in Massachusetts" by the Rev. Dr. T. J. Jesset, was written especially for the General Convention of 1952, which met in Boston, and was published at the expense of the two Massachusetts dioceses. A semi- centennial history of the Diocese of Western Massachusetts by the Rev. Donald N. Alexander, published in 1952, can be obtained from the diocesan headquarters at 37 Chestnut Street, Springfield.
Two accounts of Phillips Brooks by his own clergy are readily available. The first is the monumental biography of the great preacher and bishop by the late Professor A. V. G. Allen in two considerable volumes. A one-volume abbreviation of this by another hand also exists. The second account in a smallish volume, is by Brooks' successor, Bishop William Lawrence, highly competent and interesting. A study of Phillips Brooks by Professor Albright of the Cambridge Seminary is coming out this year. A work by Bishop Sherrill on "The Later Years of William Lawrence" is highly worth reading.
A most valuable study of the Diocese from 1810 to 1872 is a Harvard Ph.D thesis by the late Joseph B. Berry, beautifully brought out as a memorial by his mother and widow. This Ph.D
III.
essay is an example of a score or more like doctoral theses, or more popular accounts, which could be written on various periods or phases of New England Episcopal history. I would suggest just one such title: "The Episcopal Parishes of Lowell and Lawrence, Massa- chusetts," with their background in the history of these manu- facturing cities and their neighboring communities. Parochial histories of consequence exist for Christ Church, Cambridge and for the parishes of the Advent and of Trinity, Boston.
Long, definitive histories of the New England dioceses, such as the history of the Church in New Jersey by Dr. Nelson B. Burr of the Library of Congress, and a like history which he is planning for Connecticut, are certainly desiderata. So, "Coats off, Christian Brothers !"
Dudley Tyng
Greenville, Rhode Island
September, 1960
BISHOP BASS First Bishop of Diocese
IV.
FRONTISPIECE
This symbolizes the growth of our Diocese. The silhouette is, of course, the figure of the first Bishop, Edward Bass. Behind him is a "tapestry" of the seven oldest parishes, arranged by date of organization : Quincy, Newburyport, Marblehead, Boston, Hanover, Taunton, and Dedham. In each case except one, the drawing represents the original church ... research failed to disclose any illustration of the original Taunton church building. In the fore- ground is Bishop Stokes, pointing to the most recent development, the Mobile Mission Church.
Bishops of the Two Dioceses
EDWARD BASS 1797 - 1803
SAMUEL PARKER 1804
ALEXANDER V. GRISWOLD 1811 - 1843
MANTON EASTBURN 1843 - 1872
V.
BENJAMIN H. PADDOCK 1873 - 1891
PHILLIPS BROOKS 1891 - 1893
WILLIAM LAWRENCE 1893 - 1927
Notman
CHARLES L. SLATTERY 1927 - 1930
VI.
NORMAN B. NASH 1947 - 1956
ANSON P. STOKES, JR. 1956 - Coadjutor 1955
HENRY K. SHERRILL 1930 - 1947
VII.
SAMUEL G. BABCOCK Suffragan 1913 - 1937
RAYMOND A. HERON Suffragan 1938 - 1947
FREDERIC C. LAWRENCE Suffragan 1956-
VIII.
Bishops of Western Massachusetts
ALEXANDER H. VINTON 1902 - 1911
T
THOMAS F. DAVIES 1911 - 1936
W. APPLETON LAWRENCE 1937 - 1957
ROBERT M. HATCH 1957-
IX.
Chapter I The Beginnings
1067-1688
Chapter
II
The Period of Revival
1968-1726
Chapter
III
The Period of Increase
1726-1776
Chapter IV Revolution and Reorganization ..... 1776-1810
Chapter
V
The Days of Bishop Griswold
1811-1843
Chapter
VI The Days of Bishop Eastburn
1843-1872
Chapter VII The Days of Bishop Paddock
1873-1891
Chapter VIII The Episcopate of Phillips Brooks 1891-1893
Chapter
IX
The Episcopate of William Lawrence.
1893-1927
Chapter X The Episcopate of Charles Lewis Slattery ... 1927-1930 Coadjutor .... 1922-1927 ......
Chapter XI The Episcopates of Henry Knox Sherrill ...... 1930-1947 Norman B. Nash ........... ....... 1947-1956
Chapter XII The Diocese of Western Massachusetts ...... 1902-1957
X.
CHAPTER I. The Beginnings
I. Unsuccessful Beginnings 1607 - 1685
Contemporaneous with the successful establishment of the Church of England at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607, was an un- successful attempt to plant a Church settlement on the coasts of Maine. There settlers of the Plymouth Company, headed by Raleigh Gilbert and George Popham, with the Reverend Richard Seymour as their priest, made a temporary stay near Atkins Bay. A decade later, Sir Fernando Gorges managed to plant a permanent colony near Saco. As the little settlements in this area grew in number and size, two Church of England clergymen were sent out to minister to them, Richard Gibson in 1636 and Robert Jordan in 1640.
By this time, the now strong Colony of Massachusetts was en- forcing its territorial claims to Maine and coastal New Hampshire. As a result, Gibson and Jordan, who naturally sided with their own people in resisting the political and religious domination of the Puritans, found themselves in difficulties. Propaganda against Massachusetts and propagation of the Church of England became their crime.
In 1642, after six years of labor in Maine and in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Gibson was banished. Jordan, however, was allowed to remain, for he had become a substantial citizen by marriage and good management. That he did not entirely refrain from religious activities seems quite clear. Eighteen years after Gibson's banishment, when the restoration of Charles II was cast- ing a shadow over the Puritan Commonwealth and repressive measures seemed urgent, Jordan likewise fell into the hands of the law. "They did imprisson and barbariously use Mr. Jordan for baptizing infants."* In the eyes of most Calvinistic Congregation- alists, who believed that salvation came only by conscious conver- sion, followed then by adult baptism, infant baptism was merely superstition and "papistical" practice. Again, after another eleven years, in 1671, Jordan was prosecuted for using the Prayer Book at marriages. No dire results, however, are reported. In 1675, the outbreak of King Philip's War drove him to take refuge in Ports- mouth, where he died four years later. For nearly half a century thereafter, Maine and New Hampshire were to be free from the menace of Prayer Book and prelacy.
Although Massachusetts had no Church of England parish until 1686 (two years before the original King's Chapel was built) loyal Churchmen were not a few. Even before 1625, three notable Church of England parsons, among others who never forgot their old allegiance, were present in the Colony. These were William Blackstone, William Morrell, and John Lyford.
*This and other quotations in this chapter are re-quoted from C. R. Batchelder, History of the Eastern Diocese, Vol. I, pp. 7-15.
-2-
William Blackstone (or Blaxton) who evidently enjoyed the hermit life and did not marry until quite old, was one of the earliest settlers in Boston. When the Puritans crowded in on him and made the price of franchise membership in the tax-supported Congrega- tional Church, Blackstone rebelled and sought solitude and freedom in the wilds of Rehoboth, or what is now Cumberland, Rhode Island. He had left England to avoid the Lord Bishops, and now left behind the "Lord Brethren" also. Selling his holdings in Boston, Black- stone transported his possessions on the backs of oxen forty miles through the wilderness near to what are now the villages of Lonsdale and Ashton. These goods included a library of 200 books, a large one for those days. There in Cumberland, on what he called "Study Hill," a height overlooking the river which now bears his name, Blackstone built himself a house, and introduced apple grow- ing, cattle raising and the Prayer Book to Rhode Island. If he was also a fisherman, he doubtless enjoyed casting for salmon in the once silvery waters of the cascade-studded Blackstone. He arrived in 1635, a year before Roger Williams grounded his canoe on the east bank of the Mosshassuck River, opposite the present Cathedral of St. John on North Main Street, Providence.
Blackstone lived at Study Hill for nearly forty years. Soon after his death, King Philip's War broke out. Blackstone's house went up in flames, and, doubtless with it, papers of great historical value.
As a consequence, perhaps, we know little of Blackstone's life, and still less of his labors in religion. Tradition has him preaching frequently at the "Catholic Oak," near his home, a tree which lasted well into the twentieth century. He probably officiated from time to time in the village of Providence, eight miles away. There he is said to have drawn children to his services by rewarding them with sweet apples from his farm. Most certain of all, are his visits to a Church family, the Richard Smiths, planters in the Narragansett country. He rode there through meadow and forest on the back of a trained bull. Blackstone was the first Anglican parson in Rhode Island. It was nearly a quarter of a century later before a second one came-this time to Trinity Church in Newport, founded in 1698.
William Morrell arrived in Weymouth in 1623. He prudently refrained from exercising his clerical office, at least publicly, and spent a year in the settlement studying the ways and customs of both the white men and the Indians. Returning to England, he wrote up his observations in an excellent Latin poem, which he later translated into English verse.
The third clergyman, John Lyford, who stayed in the Colonies from 1624 until his death in 1641, was much bolder. He was well received at first in Pilgrim Plymouth and officiated often in the local church. However, his theological views and his letters to England about waste and mismanagement in the Colony, letters which Governor Bradford intercepted, led to his banishment. As did
-3 ---
Roger Conant and John Oldham, he betook himself to Nantasket, then to Cape Ann and, finally, to Naumkeag, now called Salem. There he officiated for several years' till the big Puritan migrations of 1628 and 1630. The liking which these newcomers soon mani- fested for Congregationalism, with the severing of their old Church ties, ran very much against Lyford's grain. An aggravating case, in his mind, was the proceeding in which Samuel Skelton and Francis Higginson, already presbyters of the Church of England, undertook to ordain each other as minister and teacher, respectively, of the Salem Church. Lyford eventually left for the South.
His views were shared by two laymen, John and Samuel Brown, who started worship in a private house according to the offices of the Prayer Book. The Browns were sent back to England. In memory of these doughty Churchmen, a marble tablet was erected, two centuries later, in St. Peter's, Salem. It reads: "In memory of John and Samuel Brown, members of the Massachusetts Company, A. D. 1628; the former of the first Court of Assistants, and both members of the first Council; to whose intrepidity in the cause of religious freedom this, the first Episcopal Society gathered in New England, under God, owed its establishment in the year of our Lord 1629; and in memory of Philip English, who in the year 1733, pre- sented the land on which this edifice is erected; this tablet is in- scribed in the year 1833, as a grateful memorial of their devotion to the cause of Christianity, and to the ritual of the Protestant Episcopal Church." With the banishment of the Browns, the Epis- copal Church disappeared from Salem for a century. Those of the "old planters" who might have preferred the services of the Prayer Book either joined the new Church, or remained outside of it, politically without a vote and, religiously, relegated to the ranks of those whom God had not chosen.
In Boston, where the politically and religiously disfranchised were quite numerous, a "Remonstrance and Humble Petition," signed by several prominent citizens, was presented to the Town Council praying for relief. A careful reply to the petition was drawn up by the General Court itself, and the signers were heavily fined. To ready the Congregational Churches against the coming danger and to unite them more closely, the so-called "Cambridge Synod" was convened, and Edward Winslow was sent to England to be agent for the Puritan cause. His efforts there were soon render- ed unnecessary, for, by 1649, Charles I was in prison and Oliver Cromwell was on his way to be Lord Protector of the realm.
With the return of Charles II in 1660, the Quakers and Epis- copalians, the principal dissidents in Massachusetts, began "making known their grievances," and petitioning for a Royal Governor, who would enforce the toleration clauses of the old Colonial Charter. The Puritans, naturally, became alarmed. As one of them later put it, "Episcopacy, common prayer, bowing at the name of Jesus, the sign of the cross in baptism, the altar and organs are in use and like to be more and more. The Lord keep and preserve his churches, that
4-
they may not be fainting in the day of trial." In 1660, of course, this was anticipation rather than actuality.
In 1662, actuality loomed closer. The General Court received an alarming command from the King, which stressed two points. The first was that there was to be no political discrimination because of religion, that "all freeholders of competent estate, not vicious in conversations, orthodox in religion, though of different persuasions concerning church government, might have their vote in the election of all officers, civil and military." All honest and godly gentlemen were allowed to vote, though not, of course, the common folk.
The second point of the royal letter, a more specifically religious one, was, however, evaded. This provided that "all persons of good and honest lives and conversations be admitted to the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, according to the said Booke of Common Prayer, and their children to Baptism." That is, three great aversions of many Puritans, open Communion, infant baptism and use of the Prayer Book were enjoined. It is not surprising that passive resist- ance to the royal command carried the day. It is an interesting sidelight on the situation, both in England and Massachusetts, that the King saw fit to order the Puritan ministers to celebrate the Lord's Supper according to the Prayer Book usage, when not a few of them at that time lacked Episcopal orders. Charles II was, of course, no theologian, and being a Roman at heart and a rake openly, he doubtless would have cared but little had he known what he was proposing. It was not until the conversion of Massachusetts into a royal colony, and the coming of the Rev. Robert Ratcliffe to Boston in 1686, that a way of relief for Massachusetts Churchmen became open.
II. Relaying the Foundations 1686 to 1736
Up to 1685, the various attempts to establish Anglicanism in New England came to naught. The arrival of the Reverend Robert Ratcliffe in 1686, with the subsequent organization of King's Chapel in Boston, marked the turning of the tide. Fifty years later, St. John's, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, was solidly established. In the intervening half-century, the four Colonial parishes in Rhode Island were prosperously launched, while sixty other churches, large and little, came to fruition in Connecticut and Massachusetts. Al- though the Charters issued by Charles II and James II did not free Church of England folk from long annoyance at the hands of hostile local authorities, banishment of individuals and closing of churches came to an end.
-5-
Soon after Ratcliffe's arrival, two prominent Boston Church- men, Mason and Randolph, the latter the Collector of the King's Customs, petitioned the Boston Town Council to allow the new par- son to hold services in one of the three churches of the town. In the words of Judge Sewall's diary, this was "denyed; and he is granted the east end of the Town-house, where ye Deputies used to meet, untill those who desire his ministry shall provide a fitter place .*
This place, wrote Randolph to the Archbishop of Canterbury, was "found so strait that we are forced to make use of the exchange for that purpose, where to humour the people, our minister preaches twice a day and baptizes all that come to him, some infants, some adult persons. We are now come to have prayers every Wednesday and Friday mornings on their exchange, and resolve not to be baffled by their great affronts ; some calling our minister Baal's priest, and some of their ministers, from the pulpit, calling our prayers leeks, garlick and trash."
On June 15, 1686, King's Chapel parish was organized, wardens and vestry duly elected, and contracts made for benches, pulpit, and a Lord's Table. It was also noted that every Sunday "a publique collection should be taken and continued untill some publique and settled provision be made for the minister." Shortly thereafter, it was agreed that Ratcliffe's salary should be fifty pounds a year, plus anything that the Town Council might appropriate for it. The Rev. Joseph Clarke was also hired to be Ratcliffe's assistant. That an assistant was needed was evident from a letter written by Randolph to the Archbishop, dated October 27, 1686, on the matter of building a church in Boston. "Wee have at present 400 persons who are daily frequenters of our church, and as many more would come to us, but some being tradesmen, others of mechanick professions, are threatened by the Congregational men to be arrested by their creditors, or to be turned out of their work; if they offer to come to our church ; under such discouragements wee lye at present, and are forced to address your grace for reliefe."
Relief came rather speedily. For within two months, on Decem- ber 20, 1686, Sir Edmond Andros arrived to succeed Joseph Dudley as governor. He immediately demanded the use of one of the three meeting houses for Anglican services. The ministers consulted and politely refused. The Governor waited a while, and then demanded the key of the South Meeting House "that they might have prayers there." A committee of the ministers came to explain that the
edifice was private property, built by private subscription, and that his demand was, therefore, illegal. Incensed, Andros seized the building for Good Friday and Easter services on March 24 and 26, 1687. Sewall remarks, in his diary, of the Easter service that "they met at 11, and broke off past two, because of ye sacrament and Mr. Clarke's long sermon, though we were appointed to come at half
*Requotations from Batchelder Eastern Diocese I p. 361-385.
-6- -
past one; so t'was a sad sight to see how full ye street was with people gazing and moving to and fro, because they had no entrance."
A year later, Andros gave Captains Anthony Howard and William White, together with Mr. Thaddeus Mackerty, a commission "pursuant to a resolve in Council," to raise funds for a church build- ing. They were successful, and for 284 pounds, a little wooden church was erected on the site of the present King's Chapel. The first service was on June 30, 1689, two years after the one held in the South Meeting House.
Early the next year, Andros, Dudley and certain other gentle- men, who had been arrested by the Puritans after the Revolution of 1688, were sent to England by the order of the new sovereigns, William and Mary. They were, however, soon released. Andros went as Royal Governor to Virginia, and Dudley later attained the same dignity in his native Massachusetts.
In the midst of these political changes, Ratcliffe returned to England, and Samuel Myles began a long ministry at King's Chapel. One of his various assistants was Christopher Bridge, who was eventually transferred to Rhode Island, where he was instrumental in founding, in 1706, the old Narrangansett Church, now St. Paul's, Wickford.
Myles managed to procure much church furniture from Eng- land for the Chapel, as well as substantial financial aid. In 1694 the parish acquired a set of pews, fifty-six of the eighty-four needed being subscribed for by the officers of his Majesty's fleet anchored in Boston. Still later, the Chapel was doubled in size. Many new immigrants, as well as older settlers, found in it their spiritual home. The usual Sunday congregation, we are told, numbered 800 probably a considerable over-estimate, considering the size of the building.
King's Chapel continued to flourish till, finally, a new church in the growing North End became a necessity. Accordingly Christ Church, the "Old North Church" of Revolutionary fame, was built in 1723, Myles laying the cornerstone on April 15. Thus, thirty-four years after the erection of King's Chapel, a second parish came into being. Its first minister was a native of Boston, Timothy Cutler, ex-Congregationalist and ex-rector of Yale College, whose dramatic conversion to Episcopacy the year before, had precipitated the historic "Dark Day at Yale."
-7-
CHAPTER II. The Period of Increase 1736 - 1776
The two parishes in Boston continued to grow until shortly be- fore the Revolution, adding a third parish, Trinity, while smaller parishes arose to the south and along the North Shore.
Ratcliffe's successor at King's Chapel, Boston, was, as we have seen, the Rev. Samuel Myles, who had procured from England much equipment for the building to accommodate the growing congrega- tions. At the same time, Mr. Thomas Brattle gave the chapel an organ, the first in Boston. Some one else supplied a chapel clock. In Myles' day, the congregation grew not only in numbers but in increasing amity with surrounding Congregationalism. Thus Dr. Colman, pastor of the Brattle Street church, wrote in 1716: "We have but a single Congregation among us of the worship of the Church of England, who are treated by us with all Christian respect and brotherhood."* In 1722, it was necessary, as we have seen, to build the Old North Church in Boston to accommodate the overflow in King's Chapel. In March 1728, Samuel Myles passed to his rest, as did also, a year and a half later, Henry Harris, who had been for twenty years assistant minister at the chapel. Since King's Chapel was a self-supporting parish, much information as to its condition, which might otherwise have been gathered from the reports the S. P. G. required of its missionaries, is missing. All we know is that the congregation was large, growing, and respected.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.