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PROPERTY OF TRINITY CHURCH, SPRINGFIELA, MASS.
GLEN
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 02307 9285
Gc 974.402 Sp8wag Wagner, H. Hughes, 1903- Trinity's first century
TRINITY'S FIRST CENTURY
1844 - 1944
Others labored, and ye are entered into their labors.
John 4: 38
TRINITY'S FIRST CENTURY
H. HUGHES WAGNER
Published in connection with The Centennial Celebration of TRINITY METHODIST CHURCH Springfield, Massachusetts
McLOUGHLIN BROS., INC. SPRINGFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS
Allen County Public Library 900 Webster Street PO Box 2270 Fort Wayne, IM 46001-2270
LITHOGRAPHED IN THE U. S. A. BY RICH LITHOGRAPHING CO. CHICOPEE FALLS, MASS.
FOREWORD
The history of an institution is notoriously dull reading. To make it a document, complete in detail for reference purposes, it must necessarily be stuffed with dates, better for eating than reading or as Miss Weitzel suggested when she typed these lines, better for having.
So far as such matters will allow, I have tried to make this not a history, but a story. It is mostly people. For a church is mostly people. There are heroes here, and villains. I fell in love with Lucius E. Ladd and almost wept when he died, nearly forty years ago. There are comic interludes, and tragedies. There is romance, too, and suspense. And one can sense the good purposes of God at work through it all.
Since Methodism is connectional in spirit and polity some references to the influences which surrounded the growing church have been unavoidable. Old Pynchon Street Church is described at considerable lengtli for two reasons; first, since this is its first and only complete story it should be thorough; second, it is quaint and interesting.
I have read all the recorded proceedings of all the Official Board and Trustee meetings and Quartely Conferences for Pynchon Street, Central, old Trinity, Grace, and the present Trinity Churches. They constitute more than a hundred and fifty years of records and all but the very latest are hand written, some beautifully, some terribly. I have read scores of year books, calendars, souvenir booklets and historical sketches. I have read all the Springfield newspapers from the precious file in the Public Library which were issued during datcs important to this story. Several biographical and historical books have been helpful. Old Minutes of the New England Conference and early editions of the Springfield City Directory have yielded much information.
Though I have avoided the confusion of numerous foot- notes, the original manuscript documents the references for all statements of fact.
Much of the chapter on "Art, Architecture and Symbolism" has been condensed from J. Edwin Fletcher's exhaustive and valuable work, "Seeing Trinity with The Church Guide."
I am deeply grateful to Mr. Nelson Foley, Mr. and Mrs. Edwin Malone, Mrs. Horace Clark, Mrs. Joseph E. and Miss Hazel Mackey, Mrs. Lydia Bliss and Miss Mae Price for reading portions of the manuscript and offering suggestions or correct- ious to phases of the story with which they were personally acquainted; to Miss Lucille Weitzel for typing; and to Mr. Watson B. Laughton for supervising the entire make-up and publishing.
H. Hughes Wagner
October, 1944.
Springfield, Massachusetts.
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CONTENTS
Chapter Page
I The Natal Day I
2 Backgrounds 9
3 Pynchon Street Church 2I
4 The Church Is Split 45
5 Grace Church 53
6 Trinity, Bridge Street 77
7 Trinity Methodist Church 105
8 Trinity In 1944 14I
9 Centennial Program 179
IO Membership 185
PYNCHON STREET CHURCH
1844
+
ASBURY CHURCH REORGANIZED 1860 +
CENTRAL CHURCH 1867 +
TRINITY CHURCH, BRIDGE STREET 1869
1
GRACE CHURCH 1875 +
1876
+
FIRST CHURCH W. SPRINGFIELD
ST JAMES CHURCH 1898 +
+ .
1907 LIBERTY CHURCH
TRINITY CHURCH 1922 +
1944
THE TRINITY FAMILY TREE
1 THE NATAL DAY
N EW ENGLAND, in the last days of January, 1844, was colder than "the oldest inhabitant can remember to have experienced". Long Island Sound, the New Haven harbor and Boston harbor were frozen over solidly, the latter closed by ice to ten miles out. The last six days averaged 91/2° below zero in Springfield, Massachusetts, and Northampton had reported a low of 30° below. But it was wonderful for sleighing and skating. One frisky young man had skated down the Connecticut River from Hartford to Saybrook in four and one half hours.
And it was cold on Febuary 9th as William Rice, Esq. stepped from the door of his home at No. 8 Court Street, in Springfield, and started across the road toward his office. He was a tall man, smooth shaven, just 56 years of age.
Mr. Rice was the Registrer of Deeds for Hampden County as well as the County Treasurer and his office was in the twenty year old Court House, adjacent to old First Church and facing Court Square. His mission on this day, however, as he held his muffler against the wind and carefully navigated the deep, frozen ruts in the road, was not in the line of civic duty. He was about his Father's business.
For William Rice was a Christian and a devout one. And he was a Methodist. Already two more or less organ- ized societies of John Wesley's rapidly growing denomina- tion were in Springfield, one worshipping in the Asbury Chapel at the Watershops and the other in the Union
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The Old Court House in Springfield Where Methodist services were held more than a century ago.
Street church. Mr. Rice had been prominently identified with the development of both of these societies and was now on his way to launch a third.
The downtown class of Methodists, of which he was the leader, had been holding neighborhood prayer meet- ings in the Grand Jury Room of the Court House, a pract- ice which might still be continued with profit. The class had thrived. That is the way Methodism spread and her churches were created.
As Mr. Rice approached the steps of the Court House he must have paused for a moment and looked up to old First Church. The wind whistled around her stately spire, topped by the rooster which the exceedingly non-conform- ist Puritans preferred to the symbol of the cross. The stern reminder of Peter's denial suited their temperament. And as Mr. Rice looked up there must have been pride and affection in his glance. That venerable House of God had already celebrated its 200th anniversary eight years be- fore. For the first century and a half of Springfield's exist- ence she had held undisputed sway over the spiritual life of the community. Her rich and gracious record could not
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be taken away from her, history had seen to that. Not that anyone would wish to, for as a symbol of divine grace, and justice, she was strategically situated geographically, theologically and historically. But her monopoly of reli- gious influence could be and had been challenged. In Mr. Rice's glance there was also a hint of triumph. Method- ism was on the march.
The Office of the Register of Deeds was cold. Every- thing was cold. The caretaker had a fire going in the stove but it was a timorous answer to the icy blasts that rattled the window panes and whipped through the cor- ridors of the building. As Mr. Rice threw on more wood and opened the draught full he told himself that there would be soon some warmth here generated by something more combustable than pine logs.
There was a knock on the door.
"Greetings, brother Wise".
"Brother Rice," replied the Reverend Daniel Wise, pas- tor of the church on Union Street. Like Mr. Rice and unlike most everyone else, the Reverend Mr. Wise was smooth shaven. There was a dignity to his bearing and expression which belied his thirty-one years and marked him for the distinguished scholar, author, and editor he was yet to be. He had left his native England only eleven years before.
He took off his mittens and held his hands before the fire.
"It is a cold day. Am I the first to arrive?"
As if in answer the bundled figures of David Smith and Horatio Hale appeared. . Within fifteen minutes thirteen men had arrived. The room was warm.
"Brethern," said William Rice, "let us come to order. We are here on a matter of great importance to the King- dom and the Church. Brother Ransome, please lead us in prayer."
The Reverend Reuben Ransome, presiding elder, bowed his head and invoked the blessings of God. Before another year had passed he was destined to appear before Him whom he now petitioned.
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William Rice, Sr. Layman and the original organizer of Old Pynchon Street Church.
"Unless there is objection," said William Rice, "I'll ask Brother Norton to act as temporary secretary. Bro- ther Norton, will you record the names of the brethern here assembled ?"
Norman Norton borrowed from the desk a sheet of the County's stationery, dipped his pen in County ink, and wrote, carefully, painstakingly, in stately script: Rev. Dan- iel Wise, Rev. R. Ransome, Wm. Rice, Daniel Goss, Chauncey Sanderson, Chas. W. Rice, Amaziah Mayo, Henry Chapin, David Smith, Horatio C. Hale, Albert Gowdy. Samuel O. Gay, Norman Norton.
This was the first resolution:
"We, the members of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Springfield, Massachusetts, residing in and about Main Street, having advised with our brethern in the other parts of the town, deem it to be our duty to proceed forthwith in the creation of a place of worship."
This was the second resolution:
"Resolved: that we now proceed to the election of Trustees for the purpose of holding property as may be given, subscribed or loaned, for the use of the Methodist Episcopal Church hereafter to be found on Pynchon Street."
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TRINITY'S FIRST CENTURY
David Smith Original member of Pynchon Street; later benefactor and Trustee of Grace Church.
David Smith, the owner of an established carriage bus- iness on Main Street, was elected chairman of this newly created Board of Trustees, a position he was to hold for twenty years, and thirty-one years later he would be a member of the building committee of Grace Church and one of her leading benefactors.
William Rice was chosen treasurer, and he held that office until his death just nineteen years and two days later. Norman Norton, a commission merchant in the firm of King, Norton, and Ladd, was elected the first secretary and continued in office until his death in 1860.
The other trustees were Horatio C. Hale, Albert Gowdy, Samuel O. Gay, and Rufus Chandler, the only original official member not present at this meeting.
The Pynchon Street Methodist Episcopal Church was born, parent of Trinity on Bridge Street and of Grace, grandparent of the influential Christian fellowship of 1900 members who would worship in the glorious sanctuary and minister through the extensive resources of the great and beautiful cathedral edifice which would stand on the
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corner of Forest Park and be known, one hundred years later, as Trinity Methodist Church.
For fuel, coal soon supplanted wood and thousands of tons have been burned. Oil supplanted coal, and hundreds of thousands of gallons have been consumed. But for a hundred years her real warmth has been the glow of devot- ed and friendly hearts united in Christian fellowship and the fervent passion for Christ's spirit in the hearts of men which William Rice, Esq., brought with him to the office of the Register of Deeds in the Hampden County Court House in Springfield, Massachusetts, on February 9, 1844.
Old Pynchon Street Church.
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TRINITY'S FIRST CENTURY
IN THE WORLD AT LARGE
A young queen, twenty-four years old, was on the throne of England. Her name was Victoria.
There were twenty-six of these United States. Texas was not one of them but by next year it would be, to the
In thundering accompaniment of the Mexican War. £ Scotland, two years before, a queer contraption had been invented which was designed to cheapen transportation- the bicycle. Francis Scott Key had just died, and Joseph Smith, founder of Mormanism, had but a few weeks left in this world. The first telegraph line in history had just been laid between Washington and Baltimore and an eager world was awaiting a demonstration.
In the White House, at one terminal of that untested line, sat John Tyler, president of 17,069,453 American citizens by virtue of the death of William Harrison in 1841. He was a widower and Washington society was agog over the pending marriage to his second wife, scheduled for June. The nuptials were just in time, for three months later President and the brand new Mrs. Tyler would be packing their things to make way for James K. Polk. Polk's election was a good omen for the infant church on Pynchon Street. He was the first Methodist elected to the presidency. John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jack- son were still alive. "Old Hickory" was at "The Hermit- age", near Nashville, Tennessee, the time of his departure at hand.
The properly proud State of Massachusetts recorded a population of 737,699 souls and of these 11,000 lived in what General Knox had written General George Washing- ton was the "hustling bustling little community" of Spring- field on the Connecticut River. Actually nearly 4,000 of these people lived in what was then Cabotville, now part of Chicopee, and separated from Springfield in 1848.
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2 BACKGROUNDS
S C
PRINGFIELD had not gained much in the way of distinction since its founding in 1636 by William Pynchon. In the early 1800's it was, according to a mod- ern historian, "a small and relatively poor rural commun- ity which occupied thinly a large territory. Practically all of its people were of the same racial stock, practically all of them had the same manner of life and thought, and practically all of them went to the same church- the one church Springfield possessed. During the Revolutionary War West Springfield sent to Washington's army more men than Springfield did." Another writer points out that a stone marker, at what is now State and Federal Streets, assisted travelers to find their way through the cart-paths and trails toward the wilderness that leads to Boston. The town proper consisted of about a two mile row of small buildings which lined the eastern bank of the Connecticut.
But when the time for expansion came, it came on the run. The Federal Armory, which had been established in Springfield by Washington (instead of at Brookfield, Massachusetts, where the Continental Congress had order- ed it to be!) reflected in its growth the rapid rise of this new republic into one of the great powers of the world. As the nation became stronger the Armory flourished, taking Springfield with it. In 1824 a Mr. Samuel Bowles found- ed the Springfield Republican a weekly journal. In the same year that the Pynchon Society was formed the Re - publican graduated to a daily and was destined to become
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one of the most distinguished and influential newspapers in the country.
In 1839 came the railroad. Being geographically sit- uated, quite by fortune, as a natural junction for lines east and west and north and south, Springfield quickly became one of the most important railroad centers in New Eng- land, and inherited the immense industrial advantage which this brought. A news item in the New Haven Cour- ver for May 1844 commented that "Springfield, on the Connecticut River, in consequence of the great amount of business on the Western Railroad, is becoming a most im- portant place. It is a growing, beautiful and enterprising town, swarming with industrious people, and celebrated for the intelligence and beauty of its ladies." That was gallant, and true.
In the same year that Noah Webster died, 1843, George and Charles Merriam bought the copyright of his diction- ary and planned to publish it in Springfield.
METHODISM COMES TO NEW ENGLAND
Methodism itself was approximately one hundred years old the year Trinity was born. It had trickled into New England about fifty years before. Bishop Asbury had visited Springfield on Friday, July 15, 1791, preaching on the text, "It is time to seek the Lord till He come and rain righteousness upon you". In his Journal Asbury notes that "My mind has been dejected; Satan has assaulted me. I could not be fixed in prayer as I desired. We have made it one hundred and eight miles from Lynn to Springfield. I want to be with the Methodists again. O, how unworthy of such fellowship! Yet I am seated among the princes of Thy people! At six o'clock I delivered a discourse in Mr. C ------ 's home. The people were a little moved; and one sister under deep conviction. This place is a haunt of soldiery; the armory being kept here. There appears to be little religion among the inhabitants."
Thus Methodism first came to Springfield, pining, as it
10
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TRINITY'S FIRST CENTURY
were, for the golden yesterdays! It may be assumed that "the Methodists" who were "princes" were back in Lynn. Certainly Mr. Asbury's estimate of "religion among the inhabitants" was no compliment to the century and a half of the religious leadership of First Church on Court Square.
The first session of the New England Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church was held in Wilbraham on September 1797. The original meeting house still stands and is appropriately marked. Seven unofficial conferences had been held previously, however, and Lynn was the act- ual birthplace of New England Methodism. Jesse Lee presided at the first conference in Wilbraham and he made the appointments in conformity with Bishop As- bury's request since the Bishop was too ill to be present. Lee also made the appointments "with the approbation of the preachers", according to the record, which adds an- other note of distinction to that first conference.
In 1804 the "districts" were Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Boston and New London. By 1830 the northern states had become conferences in themselves and the New England Conference was composed of the Boston, Provi- dence and Springfield districts. The church membership in the conference, including probationers, in 1844, was 14,500 and there were 87 traveling preachers. Today the membership is 78,655 with 206 ministers, including supplies. One hundred years ago, then, there was one minister to every 161 members. Today there is one min- ister to every 381 members.
The New England Conference has been noted in Amer- ican Methodism not for the size of its churches but for the intellectual leadership and spiritual influence of its preach- ers, teachers and laymen. Congregationalism came to New England on the Mayflower. It had a flying start and a historical warrant. For two centuries it was practically the established state church, even supported by general taxation. If Roger Williams didn't approve he could go to Providence. By the time Methodism was born, the Puritan heritage in New England was a deep rooted tradi-
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TRINITY'S FIRST CENTURY
tion among a people to whom tradition was becoming increasingly important the further each generation was re- moved from Plymouth. Furthermore, the connectional polity of Methodism was alien to New England's zealous spirit of individualism and her "town meeting" tempera- ment.
Not so in the expanding west and south of the nation. There the fervor and vitality of the Methodist movement, with its camp meetings and revivals, was heartily wel- comed. West and south of the Hudson are the great churches in Methodism, the Protestant leadership that dominates practically every cross-road and city, the bulk of the 8,000,000 members and 22,000,000 constituents composing the largest denomination in American Protest- antism. There are more Methodists in Kansas than there are members of all other churches and faiths combined, including the Catholics.
Only in comparatively recent years has Congregation- alism in Massachusetts fallen under the shadow of another religious body, and that has come from eastward, across the Atlantic, the Roman Catholic Church.
Still, the impact of Methodism on New England and the Methodism of New England was no small thing. Boston was the hub of American intellectual life and she nurtured and attracted Methodist brain if not Methodist brawn. Bishop Simpson once enumerated six Methodist leaders "of creative mind who became leaders in their respective fields, and gave breadth and energy to the connectional movement". Four of these six -- Soule, Hedding, Fisk and Ruter -- were members of the New England Conference. The first two controlled the entire church for twenty years and then Hedding alone was the leading spirit for eight years more.
Boston became the headquarters for the scholars and social prophets of Methodism. The record of the con- tribution of the New England Conference to American Methodism and hence to Protestantism and to the gospel - of Christ in this country is incredible, 1"unique and unsur-
(1) Page 407, "History of the New England Conference" by James Mudge
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passed in the denomination". No other conference sent so many sons to the episcopacy in the nineteenth century. The first conference academy (Newmarket and Wilbra- ham, 1817), the first theological school (Boston Univer- sity, originally at Newbury, Vt., 1840), the first college still functioning (Wesleyan, 1831), the first Home Mis- sionary Society (Lynn, 1819), the first distinctively For- eign Missionary Society, (Boston 1831), the first foreign missionary (Melville B. Cox), the first weekly paper (Zion's Herald, 1823) and so many other "firsts" in Meth- odism are claimed by the New England Conference that James Mudge in his history fills six pages with them, close typed. It is generally recognized that the New England Conference led in the anti-slavery movement. Under the leadership of Orange Scott it was the first to send a delega- tion of abolitionists to General Conference, the first to call for a change in the general rules that would bar slavehold- ers from the church. In the same year that the Pynchon Society was formed, 1844, Methodism split into the south and north branches -- a division which lasted until 1936 -- on the slavery issue forced to decisive action by the New England delegation in the case of a slaveholding bishop.
And all of this, and much more, from a conference of comparatively small societies, a conference which shines quite feebly in the statistical records of the general min- utes, a conference composed of churches overarched in practically every city and town in the state by a stronger denomination and all but completely crowded out of Bos- ton proper. The bald truth is that Methodism is stronger in Springfield, in relation to her sister denominations, than in any other city in all New England. In Springfield we have five Methodist churches, two of them as strong as any in the city. There are eleven Congregational churches, though it is significant that the current pastors of four of the leading ones were born, reared, and educated in the Methodist Church. The present pastor of old First Church on Court Square is the son of a Methodist District Superintendent! The ministers of Faith and Hope Con- gregational Churches are graduates of Boston University
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School of Theology !
In much the same way that little New England itself has laid a mighty hand of influence upon the entire nation, little New England Methodism has generated power in the whole church out of all proportion to her size and statistical strength.
METHODISM COMES TO SPRINGFIELD
After Francis Asbury had paid his first visit to Spring- field there followed a sucession of itinerant Methodist preachers, among them A. Hunt, Joshua Hull, Thomas Cooper, M. Raynor, Joseph Lovel, H. Smith, George Pickering, N. Sneuthern, Hope Hull, John Finnegan, George Roberts, Henry Eams and Augustus Joselyn. It is probable also that Jesse Lee, the great apostle of New England Methodism, visited Springfield during this time. It is known that Bishop Asbury visited Springfield again in 1794 and 1795.
Most of the services were held in the homes of the peo- ple, Mr. Sikes' and Deacon John Ashley's houses being especially popular. Deacon Ashley used to ride from house to house on horseback and notify the people, "Preaching at my house this evening, if the Lord will."
Until 1819 Springfield Methodists were a part of the Tolland, Connecticut, circuit, but in that year it was made a separate station and the first resident pastor appointed. It was Daniel Dorchester, the patriarch of a long line, unbroken to this day, of distinguished New England Methodist preachers. Later Daniel Dorchester was to be- come associated with William Rice in business.
The meetings were held alternately at the "Watershops" and in Armory Chapel on "the Hill". At first the services at the Watershops were held in the old schoolhouse which stood near the corner of Hancock and Central streets. But the Baptists out-maneuvered them and took possession for themselves, the Rev. Dr. Samuel Osgood, pastor of the First Church down at Court Square, looking at the over-
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zealous antics of these alien sects down the full length of his patrician nose. The Methodists, however, like their founder, were quite at home in a grove, weather permit- ting, or in David Rice's barn.
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