USA > Massachusetts > Bristol County > Rehoboth > Early Rehoboth, documented historical studies of families and events in this Plymouth colony township, Volume IV > Part 6
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
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
This Cunningham plat shows the "Ring of the Green" divided into convenient size lots prepara- tory to sale. Judged by present day standards, Cunningham was not a very accurate surveyor.
37
The 1790 Map
Cunningham, Civil Engineer, 12 May 1856", the length of this wall is given as 397 feet, which is within a foot or two of the present-day measurement. The compass course of this old burying place wall on the west side of the present Pawtucket Avenue, is now South 5° East, exactly as laid out in 1737 and as shown on the 1790 map. In other words, the present north, east, and probably the west walls, are in the same location as was this fence as shown on the 1790 map one hundred and fifty-eight years ago. The present stone wall was built after 1790 and not in 1680 as has been so often stated in print.
In 1873 the Union Grammar (now Union Primary) School was built on Pawtucket Avenue a short distance south of the cemetery. About 1903 the town rebuilt * this Pawtucket Avenue wall, together with about half of that on Newman Avenue, topping it off with four- inch North River capstones laid in cement.
MEETING HOUSES
The building shown in the center of the 1790 map is the third Rehoboth meeting house, the erection of which was commenced on the Ring of the Green in 1716. By aid of the map, the sites of all three meeting houses can now for the first time be definitely located on the square in front of the present Newman Congregational Church, built in 1810. The only other location record extant of any of these meeting houses is the 1715 Rehoboth town meeting vote directing that the third meeting house be built thirty-three feet east of the second meeting house, but this record is so indefinite that without the map it is impossible to locate either building.
Due to the lack of space, only the barest outline of the history of these three meeting houses can be presented in the following pages. The complete study comprises more than sixty manuscript pages which it is hoped may be printed in full at some future date. The history of religion in Rehoboth is closely interwoven in the story of the building of these meeting houses. As would be expected, the Baptist influence of the nearby town of Providence helped shape the religious thought of Rehoboth.
The late Ellery H. Wilson told the writer that Cunningham's Gunter's Chain, composed of 100 steel wire links, was continually breaking and that he repaired each break by simply tying the two pieces together with cotton string. Mr. Wilson related how his father, George F. Wilson, employed Cunningham to make a survey of the northern part of the town of East Providence, which included all of what is now Rumford. After the survey was completed, the elder Mr. Wilson complained about its inaccuracies, to which Cunningham replied that "he guessed it was worth the $25 he had been paid for the job", This Cunningham survey is still extant in the possession of the Rumford Chemical Works.
Cunningham's old surveyor's transit was once owned by the writer who did considerable surveying with it in his younger days. The telescope was of the old inverting type which showed objects upside down. If the present day surveyor was to use one of these old type transits it would probably be quite a shock to see his rod man standing on his head and to have to motion him to the right when he wanted him to go to the left.
* The writer designed the new wall and supervised its rebuilding, the cost of which was at the rate of about $2.00 per foot. For his plans and for supervising the construction of the new wall, the Town of East Providence paid him the munificent fee of $15.00, which at that time did not seem so ridiculously small as it does today. As originally designed, this wall was battered in at the top with stones laid in grey Rosendale cement with raked joints. Ivy was planted at intervals, but today only a part of it remains on the southern end of the wall. The mortar joints were repointed some years since by smearing over with large gobs of white cement which took away that ancient look and ruined the appearance of what was originally an artistic wall.
.
38
Early Rehoboth
Before discussing the third meeting house, a brief account of its two predecessors, and of their locations, is of particular interest in view of the fact that little or nothing has been written about the first meeting house, while even the existence of the second * has es- caped the attention of historians. Both of these meeting houses played important parts in early New England history.
In the first meeting house the King's Royal Commissioners met in 1664 with Roger Williams, John Clark, and other Rhode Island representatives, together with those of Plymouth Colony, and there settled the boundary line controversy between the two colonies (see post, page 58). This boundary line as settled lasted for the next seventy-eight years.
The military campaign of 1690 had won for England Port Royal and all of the territory claimed by the French between the Bay of Fundy and the Massachusetts boundary. Seven years later, at the peace of Ryswick, the representatives of King William yielded up all this territory to the French King Louis XIV. Later, in Queen Anne's reign, England was again at war with France. For five months in 1709, Massachusetts had maintained 900 effective men under arms and Rhode Island 200 men, waiting for an expedition to start for Canada.
In connection with this war, the first Continental Congress to be held in America met in the second Rehoboth meeting house on Friday 14 Oct. 1709. This was a congress of the Governors of her Majesty's several Provinces and Colonies and the Crown representatives, Col. Francis Nicholson and Col. Samuel Vetch, convened to consider her Majesty's commands relating to the proposed expedition to Canada. The fact that this first Continental Congress was held in the second Rehoboth meeting house is here published for the first time. The Congress voted unanimously that an attack be made on Port Royal and drafted an address to Queen Anne.
From the preceding study of the burying place and the following studies of the second and third meeting houses, the site of the first Rehoboth meeting house can be located at a point about forty feet west of the center line of the 1825 "Slack Tomb" (now standing in the Newman Cemetery), and fifty feet southwest of the second Rehoboth meeting house. Originally a very small building, this first meeting house was probably not larger than about sixteen by twenty feet. With its numerous later additions, including three galleries, the main floor space probably never exceeded 500 square feet in area. This size would seem to be about right, for after an existence of twenty-six years the building was replaced by a second meeting house with a floor area of 1040 square feet. Thirty-five years after its completion in 1680, this second meeting house was
* Bliss, in his History of Rehoboth (1836), made no mention of a second meeting house, the building of which was commenced in 1674 and completed in 1680. In his Rehoboth in the Past (1860), page 17, Sylvanus Chase Newman mistakenly stated that this 1716 meeting house was the second one built instead of the third. This error of Newman's (due to following Bliss) has been repeated by all later writers and is here first corrected. Mr. Newman said that he had seen this meeting house, but as he was born in 1802 and the meeting house was torn down in 1814, any recollection he had of the building was that of only a very young boy.
.
The 1790 Map
39
CARPENTER CEMETERY
MEETING HOUSE ~ POND
BASEMENTHICK ADDITION, 1947
Newman Congal church
TREET LINE IN 1790
-------
1810
---
fand ..
13rd
weehm.
Medlinol I NOUNS 1
1680
The stocks, pillory. and whipping post ted in vyere /o Tront houses. eforthe meeting
Rota
169€
stood almost in me exact
First Meeting house, MEut Bronge Tablet erected in 1926.
N
The Ring zy5 year west of tabler.
Rehoboth settled in 1643, not about 1644, and Ist. Church not burned
by the Indians in 1676.
w-
E
/SLACKTOMB 1825
ADDED IN 1790
2
LOON
10
ADDITION OF
O.
5
1668
L
In the original Ring of the Green there are noy 30.3 Acres of Cemeteries.
1. William Carpenter, 1658 z.old stones at right angles 3. Ens. Thomas Read 1675 4. Philip Walker, 1679 5. Ephriam Harmon, 1683 6. Ester Bowen, 7 Mary (Bowen)Walker 1694 , 1688 8. Margaret Carpenter 1700 9. Rev. Thos. Greenwood ITZO 10. Daniel Smith, Esq. 1724 II. Abigail Smith, ' 1734 12. Dea. Samuel Newman1745 13 Hannah Newman, 1752 14. Rev. Jo. Greenwood 1766 15 Ministers Monument 063
PAWTUCKET
HUNT CEMETERY
ORIGINAL STONE WALL NOW REMOVED
6ACRE PASTOR'S LOT, 24 RODS BY 40 RODS, LAID OUT IN /682 - NOW A PART OF HUNT CEMETERY.
A 1949 PLAN OF THE OLD REHOBOTH TOWN SQUARE, NOW APART OF NEWMAN AVENUE, RUMFORD, R.I., SHOWING THE LOCATIONS OF THE PRESENT NEWMAN CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH AND THREE EARLIER MEETING HOUSES; ALSO,THE ORIGINVAL BURYING YARD AS ENCLOSED BY A STONE YYALL IN 1668, ENLARGED IN 1680, 1737, AND 1790, THE WHOLE NOW CALLED NEWMAN CEMETERY.
0 20 40 60 80 Scale in feet
Drawn by Richard Le B.Bowen for EARLY REHOBOTH, Vol. IV.
AVENUE
LAND ADDED IN 1790
LAND BETWEEN BROKEN LINES AND STONE WALLS ADDED IN 1737. COMBINED AREA 3.93 ACRES. THE 1790 ADDITION MADE A TOTAL OF 449 ACRES.
RUMFORD CHEMICAL WORKS
PROPRIETOR'S TOMB 1826
-.-
center of the
NEWMAN AVENUE
---
LAKESIDE CEMETERY
This map shows for the first time the location of the first, second, and third Rehoboth Meeting Houses in relation to the Congregational Church, and the 1680, 1737, and 1790 additions to the original "Burying Yard".
40
Early Rehoboth
found to be "too little" and was replaced by the third meeting house which had a floor area of 2000 square feet.
Unlike most other towns which build meeting houses simulta- neously with the settlement of the town, Seekonk (Rehoboth) had been settled three years before it even considered building a meeting house. It first built a house for Mr. Samuel Newman, the teacher; town meetings were held in his house. On 8 Oct. 1646 the town voted to "make a rate so much as shall build a meeting house" [Rehoboth Town Meetings Book I, p. 81].
The construction of this little building was not pushed very vigorously, for fifteen months later, 11 Jan. 1648/9, the town voted that "a levy be made for finishing the meeting house" [Ibid., Book I, p. 88]. It is amply apparent from the records that in those early days Rehoboth was not an especially "Godly" place, for so late as 1650, when Mr. Newman was having his Anabaptist troubles with Obadiah Holmes, the little church had only twenty-three members, half of whom were followers of Holmes.
By 1656 the meeting house was again too small and was enlarged by adding ten feet to the end of the original building [Ibid., Book I, p. 121]. Two years later, in 1658, the building was probably further enlarged (although the original record is crossed out) the "breadth of 3 seats" [Ibid., Book I, p. 130].
In 1659 the meeting house additions were finished, for at a town meeting held on 30 April of that year "Richard Bowen Senior & Stephen Payne, Senior, were chosen to Seat the people in the meeting house" [Ibid., Book I, p. 138]. Two years later, other repairs or additions had been made, for on 26 July 1661 the town "accounted with William Bucklin for all his work done on the meeting house" [Ibid., Book I, p. 138].
Ten years later, other changes and additions were made as appear from the record of a town meeting held on 12 May 1671, when it was "voted that the meeting house shall be seated by the townsmen according to their discretion within three moenths time and that the two gallerys The town shall take into thir owne hands and seat wth the Rest of the meeting house and that the meeting house seats shall be mended up and a new galery built at ye east end of it for the woemen and maids within the aforesaid terme and for the two gal- lerys yt are allready built the towne is to pay for them what is meet to those yt have ben at charge in building them" [Ibid., Book I, p. 195].
Started in 1674, only a few months before the outbreak of King Philip's War, the second Rehoboth meeting house was completed in 1680. It was 26 feet wide by 40 feet long with a height of 25 feet "between Joynts". It had three galleries and was the first Reho- both meeting house to have a steeple and a bell. The northeast corner of the building was 65 feet south of and 88 feet west of the southwest corner of the present Newman Congregational Church, with its north side parallel to the south end of the church.
When completed in 1680, this meeting house with its three galler- ies, steeple, and bell, was a pretentious building for the period and
41
The 1790 Map
probably the largest in this part of New England. There was no meeting house in the Town of Providence at that time *.
On 13 Nov. 1674, a town meeting voted that "a New Meeting House [the second] should be biult" [Rehoboth Town Meetings, Book II, p. 8]. At a town meeting held 9 Dec. 1674, "Nathaniel [?Paine], Joseph Peck, John Peck, John Titus, sen., and John fitch" were chosen a committee and given full power to either enlarge the pres- ent meeting house or build a new one "forty foot long or upwards and twenty six foot wide and the first ould meeting house be taken away and ye said house built in the rome of it" [Ibid., Book II, p. 8].
In the list of town debts for the year 1674 is the following item: "The Rate for ye meeting house frame made and delivered into the hands of John Dogget and Jonathan Fuller, constabels, amounting to the Sume of £40-09-04 in the year 1674. Whereof £35 is to be paid to Ensigne Henry Smith and John Titus, Sen., being one half pay for the frame" [Rehoboth Rate Book, No. 2, p. 15].
On 26 Aug. 1678, "two Rates for the meeting house were delivered into the constables hands, Thomas Read and Abraham Perrin, one amounting to the sume of £144-05-00 to be paid in Current Count- rey pay, viz: Corne, catell, Swine & fat sheep. The other to be paid in money amounting to the sume of £17-19-04" [Ibid., Book No. 2, p. 30].
In the list of town debts for the year 1678 are the following items under the title-"Debts due to Several persons for their work about the Metting house in the yeare 1678":
Samuel Peck 02-04-06
John Wodcock Sen 20-16-06
John & Abr. Peren
02-09-08
Rob. Fuller
01-18-00
John Ormsbe
00-03-09
William Saben
01-08-06
Preserved Abell
00-11-11
George Kendrick
01-14-08
John Peck
01-12-03
Rich Marten
00-08-00
Tho Cooper Jun
03-00-06
Rob. Wheaton
00-10-00
Jonathan Fuller
00-07-02
Francis Stevens
00-18-00
Rich Bowen
01-17-07
Ensigne Nicho. Peck
04-00-07
Joseph Peck
03-19-08
Rob: Miller
00-09-03
John Redway
00-07-06
Mr. Paine Sen
01-07-10
John Carpenter
00-07-06
Samuel Carpenter
01-07-06
Jonathan Blise
01-04-09
To Moses Reade
00-10-00
John Willmarth
00-07-06
Ser. Tho. Willmarth 02-04-00
[£84-02-09]
John Butterworth
01-10-00
Debts due in Money.
John Reade
01-00-00
John Titus Jun
00-11-08
John Peck 00-01-00
* "To the Town met-22 Dec. 1679. These are to pray the town now without much further delay before the boards and timber be most all sent out of the township [to Rehoboth]-done to the par- ticular propriety and advantage of only some few particular persons of the town-that they agree lovingly together for the building them a town house to keep their meetings at, and not yet to continue further troubles and burdens on some particular persons, without tendering any satis- faction for the priviledge thereof, as hath appeared near this two years space of time unto your neighbor and friend
"Daniel Abbott"
[Early Providence Town Records, vol. XV, p. 198.]
"At a town meeting, 29 Jan. 1679/80, it was voted by ye towne upon ye prsentation of a bill by Mr. Roger Williams concerning house Rent & Clerkes fees . .. Dan: Abbott shall have of this Towne the full & just Sume of forty shillings in Current pay of this Colony . . " [Ibid., vol. VIII, p. 63].
42
Early Rehoboth
John Hall
00-01-03
Tho. Reade
00-04-06
Tho. Reade
00-11-06
William Carpenter
00-05-08
William Carpenter
01-05-09
Left Petter Hunt 00-14-00
Decon Walker
05-01-10
John Fitch
00-01-00
Saml Perey
00-19-00
Daniell Smith 00-03-06
Left Petter Hunt
04-17-11
Anthony Perry
00-05-00
John Fitch
03-03-09
John Titus
00-01-00
Anthoney Perey
03-05-06
John Woodcock
05-03-00
John Titus Sen
05-07-06
Ensigne Nicho. Peck
00-01-00
[Rehoboth Rate Book, No. 2, p. 29.]
[£ 6-19-08]
The foregoing hitherto unpublished list of men who worked on the second meeting house is of especial importance in that it records the names of some forty inhabitants who were in Rehoboth two years after the close of King Philip's War. The construction work on the meeting house must have been pretty well along at that time, for the amount of money due these men amounted to 56 per centum of the building appropriation made 26 Aug. 1678.
At a town meeting held on 17 Jan. 1678/9, it was "voted that the Comitye yt chosen to manage the concerns of the Meeting house should make use of the ould meeting house for the finishing of the New as they see cause and the rest of the ould house to sell for the Townes advantage" [Rehoboth Town Meetings, Book II, p. 27].
The second meeting house was finished on 10 Dec. 1680, for at a town meeting held on that date "Mr. Daniel Smith, Leftenant Peter Hunt, Ensigne Nicholas Peck, Gilbert Brooks, and Anthony Perey were chosen a committee to Seate the meeting house" [Ibid., Book II, p. 32].
The meeting house had a bell, for on 26 June 1681 the town voted that "John Willmouth shall have twenty shilling for this year pro- vided he ring the Bell at all tymes of publique worship and at Bur- ruialls if he have time by notice of it" [Ibid., Book II, p. 33].
There were stocks in the second meeting house yard so late as the winter of 1692/3, at which time the selectmen were ordered "to pay John Titus for mending ye stock & meeting house stepel, 3s. 6d .; to pay William Carpenter for mending ye meeting house & framing a rale acrose ye doore, 2s.6d." [Ibid., Book II, p. 53].
In 1701 the meeting house galleries were enlarged and more seats added to the body of the meeting house. The town voted that "one quarter of the charge [of enlargement] shall be raised upon the heads of all the men that are able to come to heare & the rest upon ye rateable estates" [Ibid., Book II, p. 88]. This is the first record of Congregational Church members being especially taxed for the repairs or building of a Rehoboth town meeting house.
In the seventeenth century all of the building and repair costs of the first two Rehoboth meeting houses were paid for by a tax levied on the ratable estates of all of the male inhabitants. From the be- ginning of the eighteenth century, the Congregational church mem- bers paid increasingly larger meeting house taxes, which in the third meeting house amounted to more than half of the cost of the build- ing.
43
The 1790 Map
By 12 Sept. 1715, the second meeting house had outlived its days of usefulness and at a town meeting held on that date, a committee was appointed to consider "Repairing or Inlarging the Meeting house in Sd Rehoboth or Building anew" [Ibid., Book II, p. 162].
The third meeting house in the Ring of the Green stood length- wise on what is now Newman Avenue, its east end in line with and seven feet west of the west side of the present Newman Congrega- tional Church, and its north side sixty-two feet south of the front of the church. A very pretentious building for its period, it was prob- ably the finest in this part of New England. It was forty feet wide by fifty feet long with a height of twenty-five feet between sill and plate. The sides of the building were clapboarded and the roof shingled. There were two rows of two-sash windows on the four sides of the building; a door in each of the east and south ends, with the main entrance in the middle of the south side. It had a steeple and a bell, probably on the east end.
The pulpit, facing the main entrance, was in the center of the north side of the building and was eight feet wide by four feet deep; on its west side there were three steps four feet wide leading to a landing, from which three steps three and one-half feet wide lead to the east into the pulpit. In a recess in front of the whole width of the pulpit was the deacon's seat and table facing the congregation.
Four boxed-in pews, about five and one-half feet wide by six feet deep, were on the east side of the pulpit, and three on the west side. On the south side of the building, there were three boxed-in pews on either side of the main entrance, and four more on each of the east and west walls of the building, a total of twenty-one wall pews. There was a center aisle with two other aisles in front of the end wall pews. Between the last corner pews on the south side and the first pews on the east and west ends, were the stairs leading to the lower galleries. Three steps four feet wide lead to landings from which stairs three feet wide lead to landings in the southeast and southwest corners of the meeting-house and lower galleries .* Stairs connected the lower and upper galleries.
Through many pages of original records, the third Rehoboth meet- ing house is recorded in greater detail than any other town meeting house. These records are so interwoven with church strife that they present a complete picture of eighteenth century religious freedom in the town.
At a town meeting held on 7 Nov. 1715, it was "voted that it was better to build a new meeting house than to inlarge the old meeting house or repair the same considering that it was too little". The house was to stand near the old meeting house (33 feet east) and to be 50 feet in length by 40 feet in width and at least 24 or 25 feet be- tween "joynts". The town voted to contribute £250 towards the cost of the building, providing the balance of the cost (some £250) was contributed by "those that live on the westerly side of the town
* These measurements are taken from a floor plan of this meeting house drawn in 1752. The drawing was made to show the location of the pews and the names of their new holders when the meeting house was repaired at that time. The writer has a photostatic copy of the original which is in private hands.
44
Early Rehoboth
(that is) those that are 'constant hearers' who were to have the old meeting house to help towards building the new". The "constant hearers" were to contribute £100 in 1715, £100 in 1716, and the balance necessary to finish the building, in 1717. [Rehoboth Town Meetings, Book II, pp. 163, 164.]
The records of the town meeting held on 12 Dec. 1715 show that the "constant hearers . . . Entered into a Community & have subscribed their Names & have Obliged themselves & their heirs to finish the Sd Meeting house now voted to be Built which Wholly Clears the Town In Gen11 as a Town To be at any further Charge about the Sd Meeting house other than the above Men- tioned £250 & the old Meeting house . . . to be biult Substaincially & ornimentally Suitable for such an house" [Rehoboth Town Meet- ings, Book II, p. 167].
The signed agreement of the "constant hearers" under date of 21 Nov. 1715 was incorporated in the records of the town meeting. The agreement and the names of the signers follow:
"Now We the Subscribers hereof Do Covent & Oblige our Selves & our heirs ... To pay Towards the above Sd Meeting house In Building & finishing £100 this pesent year & £100 in the year 1716 & what more Shall be Wanting for the finishing of Sd Meeting house in the year 1717 Sd money To be Raised In a Rate upon the Subscribers hereof, according to the Same Rule & Manner as other Town Rates are Made. In Witness Whereof We the Subscribers have Sett to our hands the 21st day of November as follows, viz:
"John Butterworth
33. Josiah Carpenter
1. Sam1] Newman
34. Joseph Titus Sen™
2. Abiah Carpenter
35. Thos Read Junr
3. Moses Read
36. James Saben
4. Dan11 Smith
37. James Carpenter Sent
38. John Titus
6. Philip Walker
7. Dan' Carpenter Sent
40. Will Brown
41. John Perrin
42. Sam11 Hill
10. Benj. Hunt
11. John French [Deacon]
12. John Humphery
13. James Read
46. Jabez Bowen
15. Obadiah Carpenter
48. Josiall Perry
16. Peter Hunt
49. Abiall Smith
17. Samll Fisk
50. Obadiah Ingraham
51. Ephraim Carpenter
19. Timothy Ide Senr
52. Nathaniell Hunt
53. Ebinezar Walker
21. Ephraim May
54. John Lyon
22. Preserved Abell
55. Sam11 Blanding
56. Israell Read Jun™
57. Daued Thurston
58. Edward Glouer
25. Noah Saben
26. Elisha Peck
27. Timothy Walker
28. Sam11 Mason
61. Jonathan Chaffee
29. Lenord Newsom
62. Thomas Smith
30. Nathan Peck
31. John Butterworth, Jun
32. Joseph Kent
63. Silas Titus
64. Nathaniell Read
65. Joseph Peck Jun™
5. Joseph Bucklen, Jun™
39. Sam11 Cooper
8. Thos Cooper
9. George BarStoo Sent
43. Ezkeill Read
44. Daued Newman
45. Nicolas Peck
14. Dan11 Perrin
47. John Carpenter
20. Henery Smith
18. Joseph Bozworth
23. Josiah Turrner
24. Joseph Peck Sen™
59. John Read Sent
60. Jonathan Carpenter
45
The 1790 Map
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