USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Andover > Andover: symbol of New England; the evolution of a town > Part 20
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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 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39
Daily existence for the "theologues" was, however, decidedly primitive, with few comforts and no luxuries. Most of the stu- dents had little money, but no tuition fee was charged and the rent of a room was from two to four dollars a year. There being no water supply except wells, they drew water in their own pitchers out-of-doors, winters as well as summers. They carried fuel for their wood stoves upstairs from the Seminary woodpile and managed the disposal of their ashes and slops. They made their own beds and trimmed their own kerosene lamps. For many years during the winter season, always severe in the New England area, they ate their meals in a dining room without either a fireplace or a stove. A faculty report on this matter said, in very moderate language, "that the provision of a warm room would be very grateful to all, peculiarly so to those who are in feeble health." A row of small headstones in the Chapel Burying Ground tells a pathetic story of student mortality.
The food also left much to be desired, although it must be admitted that the students themselves, in intermittent moods of Puritanical self-denial, voted to dispense with sugar, coffee, and tea, evidently wishing to mortify the flesh. On the subject of re-
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trenchment in things not essential to health and comfort, differ- ences of opinion developed, and the ascetics were not always victorious.
Under this Spartan regimen many of the students suffered from indigestion and proved easy prey to epidemics. So disturb- ing did conditions become that a group of local ladies formed a Samaritan Female Society of Andover and vicinity for the pur- pose of helping sick "theologues" and providing them with "bedding, furniture, fuel, diet, medicine, nurses, physicians, necessaries, and comforts, as may be requisite and proper for their respective cases." To give opportunities for physical exer- cise, the trustees erected a very plain stone structure, equipped with tools and benches, where the students could fashion wheel- barrows, tables, coffins, and other useful articles. One commen- tator on the early days of the Seminary has written:
Hammered in were the Greek and Hebrew, homiletics and ecclesi- astical history, election, free grace, natural depravity, and justifica- tion by faith,-hammered down tight and the nail clinched on the other side.
The students who voluntarily subjected themselves to such a way of life were, for the most part, college graduates and mature men. During its first quarter century only 42 out of 607 Andover Seminary graduates did not hold college degrees. They had put away childish things and were dedicated adults, ready for any necessary sacrifice. Unquestionably they added greatly to the in- tellectual life of the community. It is pleasant to know, however, that many of them kept their sense of humor. One "theologue," writing in 1819, to his "best girl," makes some frank comments on his prescribed routine:
That you may know how much of a slave a man may be at Andover, if he will follow the rules adopted by the majority, I will give the order of the day. By rising at the six o'clock bell he will hardly find time to set his room in order and attend to his private devotions, be- fore the bell at seven calls him to prayer in the chapel. From the
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chapel he must go immediately to the hall and by the time breakfast is ended it is eight o'clock, when study hours commence and continue till twelve. Study hours again from half past one to three. Then reci- tation, prayer, and supper, makes it six in the afternoon. Study hours again from seven to nine leaves just enough time for evening devo- tion before sleep. Now, my dear Seraph, if you can tell me if this is consistent with those means to preserve health, which have been said to be so abundantly used here, I will confess that your discernment far exceeds mine. For my own part I expect to become an outlaw; for I will not be so much confined. Few means are wanting to enable us to become great men; but the opportunity to kill oneself with study is rather too good.
Conscious of their priority in the field of Protestant education, the Seminary faculty felt a driving sense of responsibility. The young men under their instruction brought the institution dis- tinction all over the world, especially as pioneers in foreign mis- sion enterprises. The Society of Brethren, organized at Williams College in 1802, was transferred two years later to Andover, un- der the sponsorship of Samuel J. Mills. Four men from the Sem- inary led the way into "heathen lands"-Adoniram Judson, Samuel Newell, Samuel Nott, and Gordon Hall. Of the Seminary graduates in its first quarter century, about one in ten was com- missioned as a foreign missionary. Thus it quickly became recog- nized as "a seed bed of missionary propaganda." Even those not altogether sympathetic with such crusading zeal have recognized the elements of romance in these intrepid spiritual adventurers.
The importance of these matters for this narrative is that the small inland Essex County village became known around the globe, in Hawaii and the Sandwich Islands, in Ceylon and Java, even in Smyrna and Jerusalem. Many of these missionaries were persecuted, and a few were massacred, but not one ever flinched or retreated. Salem and Marblehead, the coastal towns, were al- ready familiar names to the islanders of the Pacific and Indian Oceans, because of the merchantmen and whalers who had sailed there. The frock-coated men of God who went out from
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Zion's Hill were less profane and picturesque, but they were just as brave and eager. Among them was no Captain Ahab, but some of them suffered as much as he. Their adversary was the Devil, not the White Whale.
Although the chronicle of these missionary exploits is fasci- nating, it is not relevant here. But everybody in our town, no matter what his religious faith, can be proud that from it zealous Christians went out into all the earth to spread the Gospel which meant so much to them. At the Seminary's fortieth commence- ment in 1848, the twenty-eight students graduating sang in their parting hymn:
I cannot rest; there comes a sweet and secret whisper to my spirit Like a dream of night, That tells me I am on enchanted ground. The voice of my departed Lord Go, teach all nations, Comes on the night air And awakes my ear. . . . I may no longer doubt to give up friends and idle hopes, And every tie that binds my heart to worldly joys. Henceforth then it matters not if storm or sunshine be my earthly lot; Bitter or sweet my cup,- I only pray God make me holy and my spirit nerved for the stern hour of strife.
The work of its graduates in the missionary field brought An- dover Theological Seminary approbation and fame. Even more important, perhaps, was what was accomplished in the "Presi- dent's House," which Dr. Ebenezer Porter, as Bartlet Professor of Sacred Rhetoric, occupied from 1812 until his death in 1834, to the glory of the town. An invalid all his life, he usually wore a yellow bandanna handkerchief tied about his throat, and even on hot days a long dark cloak hung from his shoulders. Although he was seldom free from pain, he gathered strength on Monday evenings to assemble in his study on the south side of the house
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Samuel Osgood, 1747-1813
Isaac Ingalls Stevens, 1818-1862
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a small group of consecrated, very earnest men, including Pro- fessor Leonard Woods, Professor Moses Stuart, Dr. Justin Ed- wards (pastor of the South Church from 1812 to 1827 and presi- dent of the Seminary from 1836 to 1842), Deacon Mark New- man (formerly principal of Phillips Academy), Squire Samuel Farrar, and an occasional resident trustee or eminent visitor. Here these conscientious Christians conceived and carried out plans some of which are still potent in our time. In 1815 they organized the American Education Society, of which the inde- fatigable Dr. Pearson was the first president; they started the Boston Recorder, the earliest religious newspaper in America; they founded the American Tract Society and initiated regular Concerts of Prayer for Colleges; and in 1827, they formed the American Temperance Society, based on a pledge of entire ab- stinence from intoxicating liquors. It seemed almost a sacrilege when in recent years cocktails have been passed in that room. Writing at a desk in that study Professor Austin Phelps, a gener- ation later, said, "A great cloud of witnesses come in at my win- dow to tell me of what Andover was in the olden time."
These articulate, aggressive thinkers had, of course, to devise some means of spreading their ideas. Soon the printing office of Flagg and Gould was opened in the second storey of an ugly building erected by the thrifty Deacon Newman for his store, where the "theological boys and girls" could buy sweet-flag and slippery elm. There Professor Stuart himself set the type for his Hebrew Grammar, until he could train a compositor to do the work; and on December 12, 1813, he sent to Dr. Pearson the proof of this book, the first volume with Hebrew type ever pub- lished in this country. By 1819 this press was supplied with type not only for Hebrew but for eleven other Oriental languages. Eventually over a hundred separate titles, the product of profes- sors in the Seminary, were printed on Andover Hill, which for this and other reasons had acquired a justifiable reputation for scholarship. In 1832 a new brick building, north of the Stuart House on Main Street, was constructed especially for the press,
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and its scope was enlarged still further. Known locally as Brick House, it was long used as a dormitory for scholarship boys at Phillips Academy and was not demolished until the 1920's. By that date its remarkable contribution to American scholarship had been almost forgotten.
The students who went out as preachers and missionaries and the faculty who started religious and educational movements and published erudite volumes naturally brought prestige not only to themselves but to their institution. To the outer world it seemed a cultural center like Cambridge and New Haven, and hardly surpassed by them. Its practical internal affairs, however, were directed by some efficient laymen, chief among whom was Samuel Farrar, of whom Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote:
Where is the patriarch time could hardly tire- The good old wrinkled, immemorial 'squire? An honest treasurer, like a black-plumed swan, Not every day our eyes may look upon.
Born in 1773, in Lincoln, Massachusetts, the son of a well-to- do farmer, Farrar, after graduating from Harvard in 1797, set- tled in the South Parish at Andover, first as a teacher in Phillips Academy and then as a lawyer. Madame Phillips took a motherly fancy to him and invited him to live at the Mansion House, where he remained as her adviser until his marriage in 1814 to the widow Phoebe Hooker. His methodical habits and exact methods of doing business soon won him influence in a Yankee community. People knew that he was prudent and sane, unlike- ly to indulge in wild speculation. In 1802, still under thirty, he was elected a trustee of the Academy and a year later became its treasurer. He was also the first president of the Andover National Bank, holding that position for thirty years, from 1826 to 1856.
Squire Farrar, or simply Squire, as he was called by everybody in the town, was legendary because of the regularity of his habits. It is said on the best of authority, his own, that he allowed the
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family clock to run down only three times in forty years. Until long after middle life he sawed wood every morning before breakfast for precisely half an hour, and then held family pray- ers at seven minutes past six, never earlier, never later. At the table he invariably asked grace in a standing posture, resting on the back of the chair, with one hand spread. On each fair day he took three walks, covering a certain route on each, so punctually that observers at his approach automatically verified their watch- es. There still remain in his crisp handwriting plans of these excursions, surveyed to the fraction of a rod. He always carried a gold-headed cane, the ferrule of which was never permitted to touch the ground.
Farrar may not have been Andover's most eminent citizen of the first half of the nineteenth century, but he was undoubtedly the most picturesque and useful. Nothing went on in local busi- ness affairs without his knowing it, and he had his finger in every financial pie. It was said of him that he could tell the net worth of every taxpayer. The extraordinary material development of both the Academy and the Seminary was attributable to his pru- dent management. He set out most of the trees on Andover Hill, including what is now the stately Elm Arch. He shrewdly oper- ated the real estate belonging to the trustees so that it brought in a maximum return. He lent out the funds of the Academy, the Seminary, and the bank so that hardly a dollar was lost over the years through poor judgment. Although never a wealthy man, he could be relied upon to contribute to every deserving cause, and he left to Phillips Academy in his will the sum of 12,000 dol- lars. Such a paragon of good citizenship deserves the tribute of later generations which have profited by his prescience. Farrar House, one of the Academy rooming houses, preserves his mem- ory on the campus to which he was so long devoted.
At the huge semicentennial celebration in 1858 of the estab- lishment of Andover Theological Seminary, Squire Farrar was the only one of its original sponsors present, and received a spon-
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taneous and tumultuous ovation. Turning to Farrar at the cli- max of his address, the orator of the day, Dr. Leonard Bacon, said:
How rare a privilege it is for us that one who had so important a part in the earliest measures for the founding of this Seminary has been continued among the living to join with us in the celebration of this jubilee! How rare a privilege that we, on whom time has wrought so many changes, are permitted on this occasion to see once more that familiar and loving countenance unchanged!
The "immemorial squire" did not die until May 13, 1864, at the ripe age of ninety-one, having watched and accomplished many wonders.
Largely because of Farrar's advice and influence, the South Parish acquired still another educational institution of a unique type. About 1827, Mrs. Nehemiah (Sarah) Abbot, a second cous- in of Judge Phillips and the widow of the first steward of the Seminary, consulted the Squire regarding her finances, asking, "What should I do with my surplus funds?" Members of the Phillips clan always seemed to have more than enough money for their personal needs. With a promptness indicating that he had already considered the matter, Farrar answered, "You should found an academy in Andover for the education of wom- en!" At that time few such institutions existed in the United States.
Responding happily to the suggestion, the lady pledged the sum of 1,000 dollars, which was advanced by Farrar. Meetings and discussions followed, in which Farrar had a large share; and on July 4, 1828, a constitution was signed by seven trustees, among them Farrar and Mark Newman. It was originally planned to locate the new school on Main Street, but some sensi- tive mothers were dissatisfied because this was the highway most frequented by "theologues and academy boys." This crisis was passed when Deacon Newman donated a lot of land on School Street, where temptation for both sexes was less likely. A suitable
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building was shortly erected, and there Abbot Female Seminary was opened on May 6, 1829, under Charles Goddard as principal. It had already been legally incorporated on February 26, thus becoming the first incorporated academy in the Commonwealth solely for the training of girls.
Although blessed from the beginning by what its historian calls a "religious spirit," the school faced pecuniary difficulties and carried for some years a heavy burden of debt. During its first thirteen years it had six principals, each one operating it as a private venture and very unprofitably. Asa Farwell, who took over in 1842, was a successful administrator, under whom the enrollment increased rapidly to as high as one hundred and eighty. He remained for ten years, and in 1851 Squire Farrar announced triumphantly that the Academy was out of debt, and promptly resigned as treasurer. Long known locally as the "Fem. Sem.," it later was rechristened Abbot Academy and has func- tioned continuously ever since with notable success, bringing young ladies to Andover from all over this country and from many foreign lands. Its high standards of scholarship gave it a distinction which it has never lost.
A minor schism led Mrs. Bela B. Edwards to open another "select private school" for girls in a large house on Main Street. Never very large, it did not really rival Abbot Female Seminary, although in some quarters it was regarded as more aristocratic. Known among the males of the Seminary and the Academy as the "Nunnery," it carried on with some success until 1864, when it ceased to operate. The presence of the young ladies from these two schools added much to the attractiveness of the town and re- deemed it from the stigma of monasticism. Indeed many of the "Fem. Sem's" and "Nuns" married "Theologues" and helped to spread the Gospel in heathen lands.
The establishment, rapid expansion, and obvious prosperity of the conservative Andover Theological Seminary was observed without enthusiasm by many of the good people of the North
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Parish. Their attitude was largely due to the liberal instruction of their minister, the Reverend William Symmes, over many years. The fifth pastor of the North Church, he served there for nearly half a century, from 1759 to 1807. In his declining years he was a patriarchal figure, somewhat autocratic but very dignified, who treated his parishioners as if they were all his children. Although he was benign as well as firm, and rarely en- gaged in theological disputation, he made no secret of his Uni- tarian leanings and was consequently regarded in the South Parish as suspiciously liberal and unorthodox. He could not have subscribed to the Seminary's rigid and dogmatic creed.
Although the venerable Dr. Symmes died in 1807, before the Seminary opened its doors, his congregation were aware that he would not have given it his blessing. In due course they called to their pulpit a promising young Harvard graduate, Samuel Gay; but as the hour for his ordination drew near, it was evi- dent that his strict Calvinistic views were repugnant to several of the more powerful figures in the church, and the invitation was withdrawn. After some further delay and consultation with well-known divines, an offer was made to Bailey Loring, only twenty-three years old, who came in 1810, just as the Seminary was getting under way. There could be no doubt about Loring, who was an unmistakable and incorrigible Arminian, unawed by the proximity of the neighboring Seminary. He was not only intelligent but also broad-minded and tolerant, and for many years managed to preserve the unity of his parish and to keep the respect and affection of his parishioners. In 1834, however, some members of his congregation formed "The Evangelical Church in North Andover" and built their own new meeting house. As if to express forcibly their intention of surviving this secession, the First Parish members raised nearly 12,000 dollars for a new meeting house, which was dedicated on June 1, 1836. The old church was torn down and has long since been forgotten.
After these not too irrelevant digressions, this chapter must end, as it began, with Andover Theological Seminary. As has
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been pointed out, it was an institution of higher learning found- ed by conservatives to defend a system of theology which was increasingly under attack by modernists. Its historian, with ac- curacy, speaks of it as having been built "sturdily to breast the gales that beat against Puritan orthodoxy." Its chief mission was first to codify and then to protect what were regarded by its cre- ators as fundamental and eternal Calvinist doctrines. But it was by no means merely static and resistant. Its faculty were always ready for militant controversy; indeed they often denounced one another as fiercely as they did the common enemy. Furthermore, they ventured forth from their ivied halls to launch their assault on the foe. Their ideas of man's relationship to his God are now virtually obsolete, as incomprehensible as the Genesis explana- tion of the origin of the world or the familiar conception of Ad- am and Eve as the physical ancestors of the settlers of Andover. Nevertheless, for several decades the Seminary Old Guard put up a valiant though losing battle. Fortunately for the future of religion, the institution proved capable of adjustment to an al- tered cosmogony. In the end the faculty could not resist the ad- vances of modern scientific discovery. One can still think of the professors as saintly without accepting their medieval creed. And although some of their most cherished beliefs now seem not only preposterous but incredibly fantastic and ruthless, they were in their own minds standing at Armageddon and fighting for the Lord God Almighty. They merit our respect if not our approbation.
More will be said later about Phillips Academy and Andover Theological Seminary and Abbot Academy in their relation- ship with the town, of which all three felt themselves to be an intrinsic part. Their unique standing in the field of education, the students and the visitors whom they attracted to Andover from the outside world, the graduates they sent forth to fill con- spicuous and useful positions in American society-all these gave Andover for the first time an importance beyond any other Essex County community.
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CHAPTER XVII
The Rise of Industry in Andover
A LTHOUGH Andover's educational institutions heightened the prestige of the town and brought pride to most of the resi- dents, they represented only one phase of the day-by-day activi- ties. It was not the professors who established the amount of the annual taxes and determined the construction of roads and sew- ers, but the local men of affairs, like Nathan W. Hazen, Abra- ham J. Gould, Warren F. Draper, Abraham Marland and his family, Mark Newman, Amos Blanchard, and others. Anybody seeking a loan for a financial enterprise went, not to Professor Moses Stuart or Principal John Adams, but to magnates like Francis Cogswell and Squire Farrar, at the Andover Bank.
While the Seminary and its faculty were turning out clergy- men and missionaries, hundreds of very respectable descend- ants of the early settlers were tilling the soil, managing stores and inns, working as laborers on the highways and in the meadows, playing an indispensable part in the town's economy. The town meetings, which settled the living conditions of both the North and the South Parishes, were attended not only by lawyers, phy- sicians, and teachers, but also by artisans, carpenters, bricklay- ers, tanners, masons, blacksmiths, cobblers, storekeepers, and all the others who keep a community functioning. The funda- mental principle of supply and demand was in operation, and when a craftsman was badly enough needed, he usually appeared out of somewhere. By the time of the Revolution the once rural Andover had become a complex social and industrial organism, considerably more lively, and more prosperous, than its English namesake. There was nothing somnolent or sluggish about the
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THE RISE OF INDUSTRY IN ANDOVER
North and South Parishes. Even before the coming of the rail- road in the 1830's they had a reputation for business enterprise. New England Yankees displayed their idealism in the establish- ment of Harvard College and Andover Theological Seminary and the Massachusetts General Hospital, but they never forgot that money made such institutions possible. They had a genius for trade and manufacturing and kept a very careful eye on investments.
At the risk of repetition, it must again be emphasized that the Anglo-Saxon men and women, Abbots and Holts and Stevenses, who made their way from the coastal settlements into what was then a forest wilderness had certain physical needs for them- selves and their families to consider. Over many generations in their pleasant English villages their ancestors had developed a traditional way of living, which they hoped in some degree to perpetuate as pioneers in America. They were aware that mere existence would at first involve privation, and accordingly were prepared for hardship so long as they see the goal ahead. They desired to worship God in their own cherished fashion, to ac- quire property, even in a modest way to establish dynasties, but first of all they had to have adequate shelter and sustenance.
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