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THE BIOGRAPHY
OF A CHURCH
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GENEALOGY COLLECTION
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ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01105 8051
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A CHURCH
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ETCHING BY SAMUEL CHAMBERLAIN
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A CHURCH
A Brief History of Christ Church Cambridge, Massachusetts
by GARDINER M. DAY
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Privately Printed at The Riverside Press CAMBRIDGE, MASS. 1951
COPYRIGHT, 1951, BY GARDINER M. DAY BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.
1231519 Dedicated in gratitude to the memory of
Mary Deane Dexter 1870-1950
Devoted Member and Historiographer of the Parish
RECTORS OF CHRIST CHURCH
Missionary and Rector
1. EAST APTHORP 1759-1764
2. THE REV. MR. SAMUEL GRIFFITH -1765
3. WINWOOD SERJEANT 1767-1774
From the summer of 1774 until the fall of 1790, the Church was closed.
From 1790 until 1829 services were conducted by temporary clergymen and lay-readers.1
4. THOMAS W. COIT April 1829-March 1834
5. MARK ANTONY DEWOLFE HOWE September 1835-July 1836
3.00
6. THOMAS H. VAIL March 1837-February 1839
7. NICHOLAS HOPPIN December 1839-June 1874 2
8. WILLIAM CHAUNCEY LANGDON January 1876-November 1878
$
9. JAMES FIELD SPALDING December 1879-December 1891
10. WILLIAM BENJAMIN BASIL KING September 1892-October 1900
11. PRESCOTT EVARTS December 1900-May 1929
12. CHARLES LESLIE GLENN March 1930-September 1940
13. GARDINER MUMFORD DAY June 1941-
1 The list of temporary ministers and lay readers will be found at the end of Chapter V.
2 He served as minister in charge from December 1839 until he accepted his election as Rector in June 1843.
CONTENTS
PREFACE xi
I EAST APTHORP BUILDS THE CHURCH 1
II AN IMPOSTER AND A TORY 16
III THE CHURCH DURING THE REVOLUTION 24
IV THE READING PERIOD 35
V NICHOLAS HOPPIN, BUILDER OF THE PARISH 42
VI A SQUARE PEG IN A ROUND HOLE 56
VII ON THE ROAD TO ROME
66
VIII THE DECADE OF THE NINETIES
80
IX PRESCOTT EVARTS, TRUE SHEPHERD OF THE FLOCK 97
X CHARLES LESLIE GLENN
112
XI GARDINER MUMFORD DAY AND A WORD FROM THE VESTRY 125
XII THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 152
XIII SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER: THE CHURCH BUILDING WITH AN ACCOUNT OF THE CHIEF CHANGES AND ALTERATIONS 158
APPENDICES
A. DR. CANER'S LETTER TO THE ARCHBISHOP 167
B. EAST APTHORP'S PRAYER AT THE OPENING SERVICE 169
C. INSCRIPTION ON THE CORNER-STONE 172
D. DESCRIPTION OF THE HARVARD CHIME 173
E. THE VASSALL TOMB 175
F. COMMUNION SILVER 176
G. COL. PALFREY'S PRAYER AT THE SERVICE IN 1775 179
H. THE LAST YEARS OF DR. LANGDON 180
I. LIST OF OFFICERS OF CHRIST CHURCH, WARDENS, CLERKS, TREASURERS AND VESTRYMEN 182
PREFACE
THE LIFE of a human being when viewed from the perspective of time commonly divides itself into such phases as the youth- ful and the more mature years, the unmarried and the married periods, the military and the civilian years or the times of failure and the times of success. Similarly, the life story of a parish is marked by distinct periods differing one from the other quite as strikingly as do the phases of an individual's life. This book is the biography of a church, and from it emerges the clear personality of Christ Church parish.
As the morale of a ship's crew depends in a large measure upon the personality and competence of the captain, so the esprit de corps of a parish is determined primarily by the character and ability of its rector. The parish chooses its rector. As the years pass, it may be happy in its choice and, giving him loyal support, become a spiritual Gibraltar, or it may regret its choice and falling into a slough of acrimonious division stand still or even be thrown into retreat. Who can tell what diverse experiences may befall it?
I became interested in the history of Christ Church parish not simply because I am its thirteenth rector, nor simply because it is an old historic parish of which it could be said "George Washington slept here," but because I became in- trigued by the amazingly different types of men who were its rectors and the resulting extraordinary changes of fortune it experienced.
The first rector, finding controversy with the Puritans uncomfortably hot, chose a quieter ministry in rural England. A Tory rector fled in the face of Yankee rebels. One of the early rectors had forged ordination certificates and ended in jail! The congregation forced two other rectors to resign, one after thirty-five years of service! One rector became a
PREFACE
convert to Rome, while blindness compelled another to resign and become a novelist. Only one rector, Dr. Prescott Evarts, enjoyed a long and happy ministry and died peacefully in re- tirement. The twelfth and thirteenth rectors are still living. In addition, for more than half a century the church had no rector. Used for a time as an army barracks, for sixteen years it stood abandoned, and for more than thirty years it was dependent upon lay readers for its services.
The more one reads of its extraordinary history, the more one is amazed not only that the beautiful colonial church building has survived and is now the oldest church building in Cambridge, but that the spirit of the parish survived and that it has become one of the strongest in the Diocese of Massa- chusetts.
I have tried to narrate the history as a story and at the same time record facts about the past which presumably would be of interest to members and friends of the parish today and in the years ahead. I hope that those who read this volume may enjoy a measure of the fascination that I enjoyed in piecing the story together from the parish records.
I wish to indicate my very great indebtedness to two volumes on the history of Christ Church. The first is a book published in 1858 containing "An Historical Notice of Christ Church" and four historical sermons by the seventh rector, the Rev. Nicholas Hoppin. The other is a small historical sketch of the parish written by Samuel F. Batchelder, privately printed in a limited edition in 1893, in which the author devotes sixty pages to the history of the parish from its founding to the year 1840, the remaining five pages covering the fifty-three year period to 1893. I have leaned heavily, as my footnotes indi- cate, on these two accounts of the first seventy years of the church's history, although at a number of points I have added new material. Lacking the advantage afforded by these two earlier histories, I should almost certainly never have at- tempted to write this volume.
Anyone interested in the history of the parish will find him- self particularly indebted to Mr. Batchelder who, during his twenty-seven years as clerk of the vestry, carefully organized
PREFACE
the early records and put them in scrap books for their better preservation.
The information in this history, the source of which is not indicated in the notes, comes from the minutes of parish and vestry meetings and from other documents preserved in the parish archives.
No one could be more aware than I am of the utter impos- sibility of giving individual mention to the large number of devoted members of the parish who have made vital contribu- tions to its life. Nor will anyone be more surprised than I if some errors are not found in this volume. Any corrections or any significant new information about events or people will be appreciated, and they also will be preserved against that future day when there will be a need for this "Biography of a Church" to be brought up to date.
I am indebted to several members of the parish for reading all or part of the manuscript, but particularly to my wife for her careful proofreading at successive stages in the composi- tion of the book.
G.M.D.
April 5, 1951 Christ Church Rectory Cambridge, Massachusetts.
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A CHURCH
CHAPTER I
EAST APTHORP BUILDS THE CHURCH 1759-1764
THE AMERICAN COLONIES, and the New England Colonies in particular, were not happy hunting grounds for the missionaries of the Church of England since the colonists were for the most part dissenters driven by a determina- tion to get away from the Established Church. Neverthe- less, as the result of persistent effort King's Chapel, Christ Church, and Trinity had been established in Boston by 1759, and the following churches in other Massachusetts communities: Christ Church, Braintree (now Quincy); St. Paul's, Newburyport; St. Michael's, Marblehead; St. Thomas', Taunton; St. Andrew's, Scituate (now Han- over); St. Peter's, Salem; St. Paul's, Hopkinton; Trin- ity, Bridgewater; and St. Paul's, Dedham, the foundation of which was laid in 1758.
The beautiful village of Cambridge, well on the way to becoming the fountainhead of Puritan thought by virtue of the college recently founded by John Harvard, lay about five miles from King's Chapel and was reached only by ferry across the river. In this village there was a small group of inhabitants who found the long trip every Sun- day to Boston increasingly arduous. The members of the Church of England in Cambridge felt the community deserved a church and missionary of its own, and so, on the fifth of April, 1759, they sent the following letter to
1
2
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A CHURCH
East Authorh .
the Rev. Dr. Bearcroft, Secretary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, which was the leading missionary organization in the Church of England :
Reverend Sir:
We the subscribers, for ourselves, and in the name and at the desire of a considerable number of families professing the Church of England at Cambridge, Watertown, and places adjacent, humbly beg leave to represent to the Soci- ety the difficulties we labor under in regard to the means of public worship, and to entreat their charitable assistance. There is no Church nearer to us than Boston, which is from some of us eight, from others ten and twelve miles distant; unless, for shortening the way we submit to the inconven-
3
EAST APTHORP BUILDS THE CHURCH
ience of crossing a large ferry, which in stormy weather, and in the winter season especially, is very troublesome and sometimes impracticable. The Society will easily con- ceive the difficulty of conveying whole families to a place of public worship at such a distance, and attended by such obstructions. To remedy which, we have agreed to build a Church at Cambridge, which, as it is in the center, may in- differently serve the neighboring places, of Charlestown, Watertown, and Newtowne; besides providing for the young Gentlemen who are students at the College here, many of whom, as they have been brought up in the Church of England, are desirous of attending the worship of it. We have also made application to Mr. Apthorp, for whom we have a great esteem, and who is willing to undertake the care of such a church, on supposition we can procure him an honourable support. It is for this purpose, we have presumed to apply to the Society, being sensible that with- out this kind assistance our attempt would be frustrate. For our parts, we purpose and promise, for ourselves and in behalf of those we represent, to provide a Parsonage house and a Glebe, and to pay annually to Mr. Apthorp twenty pounds sterling, if the Society shall think proper to counte- nance our design, and assist us with such farther provision as may enable him to settle among us. We shall indeed be ready to comply with any farther instructions the Society shall please to communicate within the compass of our ability; and shall make such authentic instruments for ac- complishing what we propose, as the Society shall intimate to be proper.
Humbly begging a favourable answer to our request, we take leave to profess that we are, Rev. Sir, the Societies' and your most humble servants.
Henry Vassall Joseph Lee
John Vassall Ralph Inman
Thomas Oliver David Phips
Robert Temple James Apthorp
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THE BIOGRAPHY OF A CHURCH
This letter was also accompanied by a letter from the rector of King's Chapel in Boston, Dr. Caner, addressed to the Archbishop of Canterbury,1 not only stating the need but also suggesting to his Grace the name of East Apthorp who had volunteered to go as a missionary to Cambridge.
Mr. Apthorp, the fourth son of Charles Apthorp, Esquire, a prosperous Boston merchant, was born in Boston in 1733. After attending the Boston Latin School, East Apthorp completed his education at Jesus College, Cambridge, England, graduating cum laude, and was chosen a Fellow of his college. He married Elizabeth Hutchinson, sister of the governor of the Colony, in 1759 and that same year, at the age of twenty-six, became the first rector of Christ Church. He was evidently a man who combined learning and piety with a winsome and at- tractive personality. The Venerable Andrew Burnaby, Archdeacon of Leicester, England, who traveled in the Colonies in 1760, wrote: "The Rev. Mr. Apthorp is a very amiable young man of shining parts, great learning, and pure and engaging manners." 2 Dr. Prescott Evarts described him as "an aristocrat, a scholar, and a gentle- man." 3
Simultaneously, with the sending of the petition to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, the committee set out to secure a site, to have plans drawn for a church building, and to raise the necessary funds. The present site was chosen, half of it being purchased from one James Reid, and the other half from "the Proprietors of the Common and Undivided Lands of the Town of Cam- bridge." Mr. Peter Harrison, who had designed King's Chapel,4 was a natural choice as the architect. On Sep-
1 For Dr. Caner's letter, see Appendix A.
2 Hoppin, Nicholas, Historical Notice of Christ Church, 1858, p. 29.
3 Evarts, P., A Brief Address on the History of Christ Church, p. 16.
4 For further information, see Peter Harrison, First American Architect by Carl Brid- enbaugh, University of North Carolina Press, 1949.
5
EAST APTHORP BUILDS THE CHURCH
tember 28, 1759, the building committee voted "that a letter be written to Mr. Harrison of Newport requesting a Plan and Elevation of the Outside and Inside and of the Pulpit and Vestry of the Church; and that, if Mr. Harrison approves of it, there be no steeple, only a Tower with a Belfry, and that he be informed of the dimensions of a picture designed for the Chancel." The further require- ments were "that the extreme dimensions of the Church, including the thickness of the Walls, but exclusive of the Chancel and Tower, be Sixty Feet in Length and Forty- five Feet in Breadth, and further that the Architect be at liberty to make any alterations in the above named di- mensions of Sixty Feet by Forty-five Feet provided he does not enlarge the Area of the Church and that the Ex- pense of erecting the whole building is not to exceed Five hundred pounds sterling; that the building be of wood, and covered on the outside with Rough-cast; that there be only one tier of windows, and no Galleries, except an organ loft."
Cambridge in 1759
Before continuing our story, let us try to picture Cambridge as it was in 1759. It was a town of about fifteen hundred inhabitants. The following brief descrip- tion of its appearance is taken from an address delivered at the 150th anniversary celebration in 1911 by Richard H. Dana, president of the Cambridge Historical Society, and a devoted member of the parish:
Cambridge was "a compact, neat, and pretty village. At this time it had just begun to spread in various direc- tions. In the middle of the village, in what we call Har- vard Square, stood fine elm trees shading the town pump and watering trough. On the west side of the square stood the court house . . . A little way south, on Boylston Street, was the Blue Anchor Tavern, that played so important a
6
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A CHURCH
role in the lives of our great grandfathers. ... This street led to the great or Boylston Street bridge, the only bridge leading to Boston. Professor Wigglesworth lived in the college yard east of the president's house, and beyond that, toward Boston, stood the parsonage, where Dr. Appleton lived. Still further to the east, north of what is now ealled Massachusetts Avenue, was the large three-story house of Ralph Inman, the only house between the college yard and Boston. ...
"The Foxeroft house, to the northeast of the square, was a eonspieuous mansion. The Apthorp house, popularly called the Bishop's Palace, though no bishop ever lived there, had just been completed on the south side of Massa- chusetts Avenue between Plympton and Linden Streets. To the west were six large mansions on what was ealled Tory Row, Church Row, or the King's Highway, now a part of Brattle Street. The John Vassall, Jr., house, now known as the Longfellow house, had just been built two years before. Elmwood was added to the Row a year or two afterward, making the seventh. . .
"On the site of Christ Church was formerly the village pound. The common, which was opposite the Church, by this time eut down to its present size, was owned by eom- mon proprietors who pastured their cows on allotted por- tions. It was only later that it was transferred to the Town of Cambridge as a training ground. ...
"The roads were exeerable. The dust or mud was worse than in New England generally on account of the nature of the soil and the laek of good binding gravel. It must have taken a good hour and a half to drive the eight miles from Harvard Square by way of the great bridge, Roxbury and the Neek to Boston." 5
Cambridge's special distinction lay in the fact that Harvard College had been established there in 1636. The college comprised five buildings, Harvard, Stoughton,
5 Dana, Richard H., Address at 150th Anniversary, The Cambridge Tribune, October 21, 1911.
7
EAST APTHORP BUILDS THE CHURCH
and Massachusetts Halls, Holden Chapel, and the Presi- dent's House, now known as Wadsworth House. In ad- dition to Edward Holyoke, the President, the college consisted of two professors, four tutors, and a librarian, and about one hundred and eighty students. The un- democratic climate typical of Massachusetts in those days is evidenced by the fact that the names of the stu- dents of the college were not printed in the official catalogue in alphabetical order but in accordance with their social rank. Also at this time slavery existed in Massachusetts and the records show that there were slaves in Cambridge.
The life of the community centered in the Meeting House, of which the minister, Dr. Nathaniel Appleton, was in the forty-fourth year of a sixty-year pastorate. The standard of morals, mores, and manners of the com- munity were set by the governing committee of the Meeting House, and so far as possible conformity was made compulsory. For example, in the Meeting House records on May 8, 1761, we read: "By handy vote the same Committee was chosen as was last year to inspect the manner of professing Christians, etc."
The Meeting House naturally dominated the religious life and thought of the community; almost everyone at least nominally belonged to it except some forty people who were members or friends of the Church of England. Fortunately the extreme Calvinism that characterized New England Puritanism at this time had been modified in Cambridge through the liberalizing influences of the college. Nevertheless, as we shall see, the Church of England was feared and disliked as a symbol of the grow- ing tyranny of an increasingly disliked English govern- ment and of the "tyranny of the bishops" which had caused the Puritans to flee England for the Colonies. No doubt the fear of the Church of England had been greatly
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THE BIOGRAPHY OF A CHURCH
increased by the conversion of seven Congregational clergy- men, including the President of Yale, earlier in the cen- tury.
E.W Bouve's Lith.
Christ Church ._ Cambridge. AN EARLY ENGRAVING
The Building of the Church
Mr. Apthorp came to Cambridge immediately upon appointment and worked for the next two years with the building committee in supervising the construction of the new church. He without doubt made a hit with more than the building committee when he declined to take his annual salary of £50 during this period and turned it into the building fund. The construction of the building was evidently begun late in the fall of 1759, as there is a record of the purchase in November, 1759, of ballast stones from a vessel from Quebec. These stones were used as part of the foundation. The building accounts
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EAST APTHORP BUILDS THE CHURCH
show that most of the materials for the edifice were brought up the Charles river from Boston. It is believed that the main timbers, including the eight pillars, were felled in the upper reaches of the river, for payments are recorded for rafting and boating expenses. The pillars were bored to prevent warping-cracks and shaped by machinery either set up on the Common or at a shop which is known to have been located as late as 1798 at the corner of the present Waterhouse Street and Concord Avenue. The pillars were put in place unfinished and the capitals were not carved until 1826.6 The cornerstone was laid early in 1760. The building was completed and the opening service held in it on Thursday, October 15, 1761, at 11:00 A.M.7
Although the building committee had voted that the cost should not be over £500, it actually reached £1300. The very large increase in the estimated cost was prob- ably the reason why the coating of roughcast was never added, the belfry left half completed, and the capitals of the pillars not carved. Many of the furnishings for the new building, such as an organ, for example, were not in- stalled until several years later. Since there was no money to purchase furnishings, it was necessary to wait upon the future generosity of the friends of this newly established church.
It is interesting to note that the cornerstone is not now visible. This has resulted in theories that the stone was stolen by Tories during the Revolution, or that it was removed or destroyed at the time of the enlargement of the church in 1857. However, inasmuch as it was cus- tomary in the eighteenth century to place cornerstones
6 Christ Church, Cambridge. Some account of its present condition by Samuel F. Batchelder, Clerk of the Vestry, 1900-1927, p. 14. This booklet was privately printed and few copies are known to be in existence at present.
7 For the beautiful prayer of East Apthorp at the Dedication, slightly revised by Dr. Hoppin in 1861, see Appendix B.
10
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A CHURCH
face down in the mortar to preserve the inscription for all time, we may presume that this was done in the case of this cornerstone. Whether it is still there remains to this day an unsolved question.8
In 1764, Harvard Hall, which contained the College Library, was completely destroyed by fire. East Apthorp, at the request of the President and Fellows of Harvard College, appealed to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel for aid in re-establishing the library. In his appeal he notes, "The library and other advantages of the College are distinguishing benefits to this mission, and I am under personal obligations both to the town and the College, for their favors to me." 9 As a result, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel sent £100 worth of books to the college, and the letter and vote of thanks of the Harvard Corporation stated, "The books you have sent are just such as we wish to have. They were scarce of any of them in the Library before, and will always be an evidence of the learning and judgment of the gentle- man who chose them."
The Mayhew Controversy
East Apthorp ministered to the congregation for three years, but they were not happy years because of the con- siderable opposition to the founding of a mission of the Church of England in Cambridge. The opposition was led by the Rev. Jonathan Mayhew, pastor of the West Church in Boston, who contended that there was no need for Christ Church inasmuch as there were scarcely ten heads of families in Cambridge desirous of attending Christ Church, "five or six of whom are gentlemen of figure, having each, as is supposed, an income large enough
8 For inscription on the cornerstone, see Appendix C.
9 Evarts, Prescott, A Brief History of Christ Church, Cambridge, p. 16 (Pamphlet now out of print).
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EAST APTHORP BUILDS THE CHURCH
to maintain a domestic chaplain." East Apthorp replied (and his reply is substantiated by church records showing the deeds of sales of pews and the treasurer's accounts), "the number of families belonging to the mission was twenty-six with thirty-three communicants, and that the usual attendance in winter was forty to fifty people and in summer seldom fewer than one hundred persons."
The Congregationalists were the community in those days. The founding of the mission in Cambridge in the immediate neighborhood of Harvard College and the ap- pointment of so able a man as East Apthorp simply added fuel to the already strong suspicion that the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel was not only dangerous as the advance agency of the Church of England, but was composed of Tories committed to uphold the increasingly hated Crown; and indeed, this suspicion was well founded, for the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in- structed its missionaries to endeavor "with the utmost care and zeal to support their Majesty's government." 10 It was further rumored that East Apthorp had an eye on the episcopate, as it was naturally assumed that eventually bishoprics would be established in the Colonies. This rumor may have arisen because he built for himself a spacious and costly mansion. It still stands between Plympton and Linden Streets and is the residence of the Master of Adams House.11 Indeed, Dr. Mayhew in one of his pamphlets wrote, "Since the Mission was estab- lished in Cambridge, and a very sumptuous dwelling house (for this country) erected there, that town hath been often talked of by the Episcopalians as well as others as the proposed place of residence for a bishop." 12
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