USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Chelsea > Documentary history of Chelsea : including the Boston precincts of Winnisimmet, Rumney Marsh, and Pullen Point, 1624-1824, vol 2 > Part 18
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Oct" 18th 1824
John Tewksbury)
Stephen Hall of Chelsea.
Voted To accept the report of the Selectmen respecting the Roads in Chelsea.]
VOL. II. - 12
178
HISTORY OF CHELSEA
[CHAP. XXVI
CHAPTER XXVI
ECCLESIASTICAL
THE population of Winnisimmet, Rumney Marsh, and Pullen Point between 1635 and 1680 is uncertain; but in 1688 the number of rateable estates was twenty-five, and, allowing five persons to each, there would have been a hundred and twenty-five inhabitants.1 From the outset eireumstances had not favored rapid increase of population. In Winnisim- met, now Chelsea, there were probably not more than five families - those of Elias Maverick, and of the four tenants on the great Bellingham farms.2 A large part of Rumney Marsh, now Revere, was included in the Keayne, Newgate, Tuttle, and Cogan estates, and there was a similar state of . things at Pullen Point, now Winthrop. The estates were too large, and the non-resident proprietors too many, to promote rapid settlement.3 For these and other reasons the preeinets at the north of Boston and forming parts of it grew less rapidly than those communities which had separate municipal organizations, and were comparatively late in coming to their scanty religious and educational privileges.
1 [In 1687 thirty-one inhabitants of Rumney Marsh were taxed for " housing." As Center and Belcher were joint-tenants, presumably about thirty houses were then standing in the region that is now Chelsea, Revere, Winthrop, and, as it was once called, the " Panhandle." Many house- holders had large families. Boston Rec. Com. Rep., i. 131-133.] 2 [There were two houses on the Maverick farm, - one occupied by the widow of Elias Maverick and her son Paul, the other by Elias Maverick, Jr. The farmhouse of William Ireland and Aaron Way was also within the limits of the present city of Chelsea.]
'[In December, 1771, Jonathan Green and Samuel Watts, in a petition to the court as agents of Chelsea, which wished to be relieved from the necessity of sending two jurors to every court, said that there were then eighty-eight non-resident proprietors, some of whom made use of the land they owned, while the tenants of others were men of small substance, hence there were only thirty men in the town qualified to serve as jurors, and several of these were over seventy years of age, and ordinarily excused by the court. Suff. Early Court Files, No. 102,015.]
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Lechford says in 1641: " Where farmes or villages are, as at Rumney-marsh and Marblehead, there a Minister, or a brother of one of the congregations of Boston for the Marsh, and of Salem for Marblehead, preacheth and exerciseth prayer every Lords day, which is called prophesying in such a place."
And Savage says: " In Keayne's MS. it appears, that, in our church, carly in 1640, 'a motion was made by such as have farms at Rmnney Marsh, that onr brother Oliver may be sent to instruct their servants, and to be a help to them, because they cannot many times come hither, nor sometimes to Lym, and sometimes nowhere at all.' On this much debate followed. Ifis father spoke first: 'I desire what calling my son hath to such a work, or by what rule of God's word may the church send out any of her members to such as are not of the church.' Cotton answered, at some length. Two of the lay brethren proposed objections, to which Wilson briefly replied, and the subject was postponed. On 23 March, Wilson made a full statement of the general consent of the church, and the candi- date closed thus: 'Serjeant Oliver. I desire to speak a word or two to the business of Rumney Marsh. I am apt to be discouraged in any good work, and I am glad, that there is a universal consent in the hearts of the church; for if there should have been variety in their thoughts, or compulsion of their minds, it would have been a great discouragement. But, secing a call of God, I hope I shall employ my weak talent to God's service; and, considering my own youth and feebleness to so great a work, I shall desire my loving brethren to look at me as their brother, to send me ont with their constant prayers.' From his will, I find, he married a daughter of John Newgate, and left three children, two sons, and a danghter, who afterwards married a gentleman of the name of Wiswell." 5
John Oliver, the son of Thomas Oliver, graduated at Har- vard College in 1645, and died of a malignant fever in 1646.
4 Plain Dealing, in 3 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soe., iii. 75. [ Lechford adds that " those of the Marsh and Marblehead still come and reecive the Sacrament at Boston, and Salem respectively."]
5 Savage, Winthrop, i. 328, note. [John Oliver owned a farm at Pullen Point, and his father-in-law, John Newgate, owned the great Newgate farm at Rumey Marsh. (Supra, vol. i., pp. 198, 199.) At this time there was but one church in Boston, and none at Malden. ]
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Winthrop says: " It swept away some precious ones amongst us, especially one Mr. John Oliver, a gracious young man, not full thirty years of age, an expert soldier, an excellent surveyor of land, and one who, for the sweetness of his dispo- sition and usefulness through a public spirit, was generally beloved, and greatly lamented. For some few years past he had given up himself to the ministry of the gospel, and was become very hopeful that way, (being a good scholar and of able gifts otherwise, and had exercised publicly for two years )." 6
Samuel Maverick, writing about 1660, says of Rumney Marsh, " There are many good farmes belonging to Bostone, which have a Metting House, as it were a Chapel of Ease." 7
Some of the inhabitants of Rumney Marsh had church relations with the Boston church in 1665 as appears thus :
" These do testifie vnto the honoured Gen. Court yt m! John Tuttle, William Hasie, and Benjamin Muzzie of Boston - Rumnie marsh, are vpon Good testimony of others, and my owne knowledge or experience both orthodox in the Christian Religion, and of unblameable conversation, as I do believe, and doe humbly comend them therfore vnto the Acceptance of the hon. Court, into the Society and Companie of our freemen, according as they expresse their desires therevnto, and Aymes at the Common Good therein. 2ª d. of the 3 m. 65. John Wilson Senior.
Mr John Tuttle, William Hasie and Benjamin Muszie, are raiteable according to the Law made for admitance of Free-men : 2 : May 1665. Hezekiah Vsher." 8
6 Savage, Winthrop, ii. 257. See also ibid., i. 96, note (2) for some account of the Oliver Family. [Sibley, Harvard Graduates, i. 102-106.]
" Briefe Discription of New England, in 2 Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc., i. 236. This meeting-house may have been the "old meeting house " so often spoken of in the Town Records a hundred years later. [Infra, p. 186.]
8 Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc., xii. 105. Muzzey, who was tenant of the Keayne farın in Revere, and Tuttle and Hasey, who lived not far from the Winthrop road, were, in 1665, members of the First Church in Boston. Going to church was a serious undertaking for those who had to cross an uncertain ferry, besides the long travel from Revere to the water side. [William Hasey could go by boat from the landing place on his farm (supra, vol. i. p. 244). Muzzey and Tuttle required the certificate of a Bos- ton minister; they may have attended church in Malden or Lynn.] Every citizen or freeman as he was called, must not only be a member of the church, but also in "good and regular standing." Citizenship was con- ferred by the General Court on petition, and as in this case, with a cer- tificate of church-membership and good character. Massachusetts was
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CHAP. XXVI]
On this testimony, May 3, 1665, Wm Hazzey and Benj. Muzzey were admitted freemen .?
What local religions privileges, save those above mentioned, the inhabitants of Winnisinnet and Rumney Marsh enjoyed before the formation of the church in 1715,10 under Thomas Cheever is now a matter of conjecture. For many years pro- vious to that date Cheever had resided at Rummey March, where he owned an estate.11
He taught the children there as early as 1709, perhaps earlier, and may have preached there before the organization of the church. The following vote of the town of Boston indi- cates the earliest movement towards the erection of a meeting- house at Rumney Marsh.
March 11, 1705/6. " ... next was read the Petition of Sun- dry of the Inhabitts of Rummy Marsh ab! the building a meeting house there. . . .
settled by a land company which was a close corporation. It claimed the right to determine who should be members of it and vote in its affairs. It was an age of seets and schisms; but the Puritans allowed no seetaries other than themselves in their community, or at least with power to vote in their affairs. Consequently, those who became citizens, that is, members of the corporation, were voted in. If they did not conduct themselves to suit the majority, they voted them ont. An understanding of these facts furnishes a key to much that seems extraordinary in their proccedings.
[In 1664, in response to the King's letter of June 28, 1662, the General Court changed the law as to freemen, voting that men twenty-four years of age, " houscholders and setled inhabitants in this jurisdiccon," might be admitted as freemen by vote of the General Court on " presenting a cirtiffient, under the hands of the ministers or minister of the place where they dwell, that they are orthodox in religion, & not vitions in theire liues, & also a certificat, vnder the hands of the selectmen of the place, or of the major part of them, that they are freeholders, & are for their oune propper estate (wthout heads of psons) rateable to the country in a single country rate . . . to the full value of tenne shillings, or that they are in full com- union wth some church amongst vs." (Mass. Col. Rec., iv. pt. ii. 117.) The certificate in the text meets the requirements of the first alternative. William Hasey was not a church member, as his children in 1664 and earlier were baptized in the right of his wife. When John Tuttle and Wil- liam Hasey were nominated to the General Court at the October session in 1662 for lientenant and cornet of the Three County Troop, a certificate was demanded that they " be circumstanced as the law provides." At the ses- sion beginning May 3, 1665, the court approved their election, and ordered the Secretary to give them their commissions. Mass. Col. Rec., iv. pt. ii. GG, 149.1
" Mass. Col. Rec., iv. pt. ii. pp. 581, 582.
1º [Sce infra, pp. 187-191.]
11 Infra, p. 192.
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HISTORY OF CHELSEA
[CHAP. XXV
" Elisha Cook Esq". Elisha Hutchenson Esqr. Samuell Sewel Esq". Penn Townsend Esqr. & Eldr. Joseph Bridham are apointed a Committee to consider and make report at the next Town mneet- ing of what they shall think proper to Lay before the Town relating to the Petition of Sundry of the Inhabitants of Rumny marsh abt. the building of a meeting House there." 12
1706, March 29. The committee thus appointed not being " fully prepared to make report thereof " were " continued in that Service until the next meeting "; and on June 10, to " the next Publiek meeting in March," 1706/7, - which carried the subject over into the next year. Even then, Mareli 10, 1706/7, it was voted " that the Committee abt the Petition of Severall of the Inhabitants of Rumny marsh abt building a meeting House there, be continued and desired furder to prepare and make report of what they thinek proper to offer in that affaire unto next Gen11 meeting of this Town."
Two years passed before the matter was again considered.13 In the meantime the people had become impatient of the delay.
1708/9, March 14. "Whereas Sundry of the Inhabitants of Rumny marsh being present and desireing that their Petition (formerly given in & lieing on file wth the Town Records, praying a Grant of Sutable encouragmt in Order to their building a Meet- ing House) may be further considered and Granted.
" Voted. That the Survivers of the former Committee there- unto Appointed Vizt Elisha Cook Esqr Elisha Hutchinson Esqr
12 Town Records in Boston Ree. Com. Rep., viii. 35, 36.
13 [Presumably these postponements were to await the issue of an effort to validate the will of Governor Bellingham. The petition for the building of the meeting-house was presented to the Boston town-meeting during a lull in these proceedings. (Supra, vol. i. pp. 536, 537.) Shortly thereafter Allen renewed the struggle. Thus in February, 1704/5, James Allen peti- tioned the General Court, but without success. In July and August, 1706, be renewed his efforts. Defeated before the General Court, the contest was transferred to the law courts. At the January term, 1706/7, a judgment was rendered at the Inferior Court in favor of James Allen. If carried into execution it would have obviated all need of help from the town treasury. The appeal of Edward Watts against this decision of the court was to come before the Superior Court at the term beginning on the first Tuesday of May, 1707. Final judgment against the will was not ren- dered until the May term of court, 1708. At the next annual meeting of the town the people of Rumney Marsh revived their petition, as stated in the text.]
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CHAP. XXVI]
Sam" Sewall Esquire, Penn Towensend Esqr unto wch committee is now Added Edward Bromfeeld Esqr who are desired to Con- sider of that Affaire and to make report to the Town at their next Meeting of what they Shall thinck proper for ye Town to do therein."
1709, April 29. " Agreeable to the report now made by the Committee apointed at ye Last meeting to consider about building a meeting House at Rumny Marsh.
" Voted. a Grant of One hundred pounds to be raised and Laid out in building a meeting House at Runny Marsh.
" Voted. 'That the afor Said Committee . . . are appointed and impowered to direct, both as to the place and manner of Erect- ing Sd meeting House." 14
But the scheme of a new meeting-honse met with opposition from some of the principal inhabitants at Rumney Marsh, as appears from the following paper : 15
To the inhabetence of the town of Boston and honerable gentle men of the committy february 2day 1709/10
Where as A petition haveing formerly been prefered by sume of the inhabetence of Rumble marsh to the town of Boston to build a meeting house for their more comfourtable attending the wor- ship of god &c, or els to forgive them their town Raits which peti- tion by reason of other contrivences fell & for several years lay dorment tell some were dead, & others removed, others bought and some sold so that there was a new face upon things, and upon further consideration, many have seen the inconvenience of the thing and expected to have heard no more of it.
The designe and meaning of this instrument is to shew the unfair dealing of a vary few pertickeluer persons, who have of their one accord, without aequinting the society there with, revived & prose- euted the above named petition, with the names of the former sub- scribers sume of which remember nothing of their seting there hands to the said petition, and sume of whome being dead can aet no further, the rest whose nams are here unto subscribed upon more deliberation and under present circonstances have seen canse to allther their minds;
we would not be understood to oppose or discourage the settelment
14 Boston Ree. Com. Rep., viii. 59, 62. [November 7, 1709, the selectmen ordered a payment of fifty pounds to the committee to purchase material for the meeting-house. Ibid., xi. 97.]
15 Original (framed) at the City Hall, Chelsea.
184
HISTORY OF CHELSEA
[CHAP. XXVI
of the ordinences of god among us, for if the town above said will enable us by providing sutable accommondations to seettle a min- ister & build a meeting hous, & further if nesesity requires to helpe us as we stand in need, we shall looke upon ourselves & children inviolibly bound, but if only the 100" be alowed, for which we greatfully acknowlidge the good will of the granters, yet it not being by any means sufficient for the porpose we cannot but esteam it less then nothing; and will rether tend to lead us into a snare and all that see us will begin to inocke us becaus we begin that which we cannot goc throw with, for such reasons as these, (1) we are in our infency not able to stand alone but must be upheld. (2) our number is small. (3) we are under great infirmity great divisions being among us. (4) our incommodeous sittiuation for It . 9 or . 10 miles distence, that many do now & its likely will chouse to goc to other places adjacent, And where as it was offered (1) that at our meting we wanted roume, we answere since maldon ch is setled with a minister we want hearers more then roume. (2) it was objeted that our children were in danger to be brought up in ignorence the objection is great, but we should be vary glad to see our children like to goc beyend thire predecessers.
and firther your petitioners prays that this our deceant may be entered in the town Book.
Joshua Bill John Wait
Sam !! mark Breden
Thomas Pratt
his
Thomas Berry
Joseph Brintnal
William Bordman
Willam custes
mark
James Bi!
Jonathan Bill Jun!
Moses 111 felt
John Center
Joseph Bill Jonathan Bill
John Lamson
marks
John Brintnall
Williw i a Hjerland his
Read at ye Town meeting
Thomas marbll
the 13th of March . 1709/0
Nicho : Paige Elisha Bennett
his
Save as stated by themselves, their objections are conjec- tural. Colonel Paige worshipped at Malden. Elisha Bennett lived in the extreme northerly part of the town near Lynn, and the Bill family at Pullen Point, - all remote from the
*
THE CHELSEA MEETINGHOUSE.
*
HELIOTYPE CO., BOSTON.
185
ECCLESIASTICAL
CHAP, XXVI]
site of the proposed new edifice.16 There is no reference to this remonstrance on the records, nor did it delay the enter- prise; for Sewall records : 17
1710, July 10. " Mr. Jnº Marion and I went to Romney-Marsh to the Raising of their Meetinghouse. I drove a Pin, gave a 58 Bill, had a very good Treat at Mr. Chievers's; went and came by Winishnet. .
" July 18 . . . Extream hot Wether. Mr. Cook, Bromfield and I goe to Rumney-Marsh in a Boat, to agree with Workmen to finish the Meetinghouse. Stowers is to make the windows. Got home well; Laus Deo. Several died of the Heat at Salem." 18
It is generally thought that the present church edifice, now owned by the Unitarian Society in Revere, is the structure erected in 1710, and referred to above by Sewall.19 It appears that before the erection of the meeting-house of 1710, there was an old meeting-house standing, as is the tradition, nearly
10 Two of the remonstrants, John Center and William Eustis, were tenants on two of the original Bellingham farms at Winnisimmet, and a third, William Ireland, part owner of the Vane allotment, living in what is now Prattville.
17 Diary, ii. 283.
18 Three months later, the heirs of Lieutenant Joseph Hasey, undoubt- edly in accordance with their earlier agreement, gave the land by a deed, the substance of which is as follows :
Elisha Tuttle, Sr., Asa Hasey, and Abraham Hasey, sons of Lieutenant Joseph Hasey, reciting that, " Whereas upon the Petition of the Jnhabi- tants of Rumney Marsh unto the Juhabitants of Boston aforest laying bo- fore them the great need [ they ] had of a Convenient place to meet in for the attending the publick Worship of God on the Lords day and at other times the Inhabitants of st Town at a Generall Town meeting did grant unto the Petrs an hundred pounds towards the building a meeting honse." and chose Hon. Elisha Cooke, Colonel Elisha Intehinson, Samuel Sewall, Esq., Colonel Penn Townsend, and Edward Bromfield, Esq., a committee to see to the laying out of said £100: Now. therefore, "for the promot- ing so good a work " we grant unto them, for the use of the inhabitants of Rumney Marsh, a certain traet of land " thirty feet from North to South and thirty four feet from East to West for sd. house to stand upon and ten feet more to measure from the backside of sd. house Northward and twenty feet more to measure from the East end of sd. house and forty feet more to measure from the South side of sd, house," which is " bounded by the highway on the Westerly side." October 6, 1710. Suff, Deeds, L. 33, f. 244. This conveyance was not easily traced on the records.
[ Apparently this lot stood on the town road on the dividing line between the Tuttle and Hasey farms. The conveyance was a deed of gift.]
1 [Supra, vol. i. p. 217; infra, p. 218, note.]
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IHISTORY OF CHELSEA
[CHAP. XXVI
opposite the present Orthodox meeting-house. The records speak of its occasional use for a schoolhouse, for town meetings and for other purposes as late as the early years of the War of the Revolution, after which no more is said of it. In 1660 Maverick speaks of a meeting-house, and about 1750 we hear of two known as the old and the new meeting-houses.20
20 September 3, 1759. Voted Samuel Floyd, Jonathan Hawks, and Sam- uel Pratt " be a committe to find a spot of ground to set a pound upon and that they make enquire who are the lawful owners of the spot of ground where the old meeting House stood." Chelsea Town Rec., i. 69. [See vol. i. 217. In August, 1755, a meeting-house was built at Point Shirley, and after this the meeting-house in Revere, where the town meet- ings were frequently held, was commonly called the old meeting-house. See Boston Weekly News-Letter, August 29, 1755; Henry Pelham's Plan of Boston in New England, with its Environs, in Siege and Evaeuation Memo- rial, Boston, 1876; also a chart of Boston Harbor, Mass. Hist. Soc. Maps, i. 2. As the leading men at Point Shirley were Episcopalians, this may have been a chapel of the Church of England. See Foote, Annals of King's Chapel, ii. 181. May 18, 1756, the town of Chelsea voted that the tax col- lected at Point Shirley for the support of the ministry should be expended there, and this vote was repeated in suceeeding years. ]
As a town burial-ground was generally considered a proper adjunet to the meeting-house, which was town property, I anticipate the history of the former by giving the following votes, though they relate only by inference to the present burial place, which had been in use more than half a century. [Supra, vol. i. pp. 238, 239.]
Mareh 7, 1743. The town voted to accept a convenient piece of land for a burying place from Joshua Cheever, Esq. Town Rec. i. 11.
" Extract from the will of Elder Joshua Cheever late of Boston 1752, L. 45, f. 303. 'Item, the Burying ground in my Land at Chelsea I give the same to the said Town for ever for that use only, with so much more Land Contiguous as shall be necessary for that use, wth a Convenient way to Carry their Dead to said burying ground, reserving to my heirs, execu- tors administrators & assigns forever the Herbage.'" Ibid., ii. 108.
May 14, 1804. Joseph Green, Samuel Low, and Seth Copland, " to en- quire into the right priviledge the town have or may have in passing to and from their burying ground." Ibid., 203. The way to the Burial Ground was defined Nov. 4, 1812, and was substantially the same as it now is. Ibid., iii. 5, 9, 10. [See also supra, vol. i. p. 218.]
187
APPENDIX 1
CHAP. XXVI]
APPENDIX 1
[UNLIKE the custom of country towns in New England, the churches of Boston were maintained by voluntary contributions, not by a town rate; its inhabitants attended the church of their choice. Some living in Rumney Marsh joined the church in Lynn, which was accessible by land when Boston harbor was blocked with ice. For the farmers living along the "Country road " to Lynn, and especially for those living in the " Panhandle," this was the most accessible church, until the one in Malden was gathered. Thomas Stocker and his wife, tenants on the Cogan farm, belonged to the Lynn church.1 Capt. Robert Keayne left legacies to the two Teaching Elders of the church at Lynn.2 Edward Holyoke lived in Lynn before he married the widow of Richard Tuttle, and his daughter, wife of Jolm Tuttle, was a member of Lynn church.3 When a church was gathered at Rumney Marsh in 1715 Edward Tuttle, Sr., was received from the church at Lynn, and was " dis- missed back " June 29, 1718. It was then discovered that his wife Abigail had never transferred her membership from Lynn to Runney Marsh. Four years later Elisha Tuttle was received from the Lynn church.
William Stitson and Elias Maverick, two of the earliest residents of Winnisimmet, joined the church in Charlestown, which was nearer than Boston both by water and by land. In 1678 Elias May- erick advocated the election of Daniel Russell to the pastorate of the church, and was appointed on a committee to tender the office to him.4 The children of Elias Maverick, Jr., and of Paul Maverick were baptized by the pastor of Charlestown.5
Shortly after John Oliver died " a church was gathered at Malden.7 Rev. Michael Wigglesworth was ordained as its pas- tor in 1657. Its early records have been lost, but it is known
1 Supra, vol. i. p. 174.
Boston Ree. Com. Rep., x. 25.
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