USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > Norwell > First Parish Church of Norwell, Massachusetts, 275th anniversary, 1642-1917, Sun. Aug. 19, 1917 > Part 2
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When Doctor Barnes began his ministry, the meeting-house built in 1707 was already outgrown by the rapidly increasing con- gregations, and various unsuccessful attempts had been made to provide a more commodious one. The shipbuilding industry was yet in its infancy and troubles with the Mother Country were be- ginning to make themselves apparent. The house then in use, having been built without cost to the Society, it was voted that any expense incurred in building a larger house must be borne by the members and attendants, and not by taxation upon the dwel- lers in the precinct, or parish. It was no time for extra taxation, in the unsettled state of Colony affairs. Various plans were pre- sented and set aside to provide a larger house with no great outlay of money. In May, 1769, it was voted " to build a new meeting- house agreeable to a said plan ( drawn by Joseph Tolman by order of a vote at a previous meeting, and laid before the Parish at this date ), using what of the old house may be convenient, and that the old pews be set up in the new house, as near as may be where they are in the old house, and that each proprietor enjoy his pew in the new house, saving those who have not agreed to give any- thing to encourage said work, or for taking down or setting up their pews. Their pews shall remain for further consideration of said precinct. But it is to be understood that this vote is upon condition that said house be built without any cost or charge to said precinct as such. The Hon. John Cushing, Nathaniel Clap, Esq., Joseph Tolman, Galen Clap, and Nathaniel Turner were appointed agents to agree with some suitable person or persons to complete said work as soon as may be, but not to exceed the first of November 1770." The house was built by Joseph Tolman, Elisha Tolman and Hawkes Cushing upon the location of the third house. It was decent in appearance, but so slightly built that in sixty years it became ruinous, having been constructed largely from the old timbers of the former house. The interior was un- couth with its square pews taken from the old meeting-house ; its communion table a wide shelf that could be raised from the front of the deacon's pew, situated in front of the pulpit on the north side of the building. On the right and left of the broad aisle, near the pulpit, were some plain oak benches for the poor who could not hire seats, and above the wide gallery that extended on three sides, in the further corner, was a little box clinging to the wall like a sort of crow's nest, a place apart for the colored people of the community.
The meeting-house had a porch on the east end, facing what is now West Street, and a belfry and spire at the west facing River Street, with entrance at either end. The aisles ran north and south, with the pulpit against the north wall. While this house was building, services were held in Doctor Barnes' uncompleted house.
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Notwithstanding some peculiarities of manner and an unpleas- ing voice, Doctor Barnes from the first was an acceptable preacher to his Society, and towards middle life is said to have become a popular preacher throughout a large circle of churches. He preached the Dudlean lecture at Harvard College in 1780 and in 1788 was honored by the college with the degree of Doctor of Divinity. His ministry extended over a period of fifty-seven years. During his later years he was a partial paralytic and after his fifty-sixth year in the ministry an assistant, the Rever- end Samuel Deane, was secured for him. Mr. Deane was ordained February 14, 1810. Doctor Barnes died April 26, 1811, aged 80. Doctor Barnes' religious teachings were of great liberality for the period ; a very moderate Calvinism, always tempered with reason. The Reverend Samuel Deane was of the same liberal type as his predecessor. Their mutual relations were very harmonious and there was much love and respect between them.
About the time of Mr. Deane's settlement, religious differences were arising in the old first churches of the Massachusetts towns. The Arminian side, in the controversy against the strict Calvin- istic creed, was being taken by many of the leading ministers of the day. In Eastern Massachusetts, where the influence of Channing and Freeman was strong, many of the settled ministers accepted the liberal side of the theological disputes. This was especially noticeable in the churches on the South Shore. The Second Scituate Church was always on the liberal side in ques- tions of religious belief, in every age since its formation, and for more than fifty years preceding the actual break in the ranks of the Congregational churches, had, by the liberal teaching of Doc- tor Barnes, been prepared to take a stand on the so-called Uni- tarian side. Throughout these trying times, Mr. Deane never embroiled his people in disputes that were not their own, and they were kept apart from this public controversy that divided many churches.
In 1820, the Parish was at the height of its material prosperity, for the busy ship-yards made work for all the artisans in the community, at fair wages, with steady employment. The War of 1812 had been brought to a close, and American shipping was assuming large proportions.
Samuel Deane was born in Mansfield, Mass., and graduated from Brown University in 1805. He received the call as colleague to Doctor Barnes in 1810, about the time of his marriage to Stella Washburn of Raynham. Settling in Scituate, he purchased the house next west of that of Doctor Barnes, supposed to have been that of " King" Philip Turner, where he made his home through- out his pastorate. It is now owned by Dr. H. W. Cushing. Mr. Deane was a tall and handsome man, with a beardless face that
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showed much character. He was a great lover of horses, and riding was his daily exercise. But the recollection of his beauti- ful tenor voice seems to have been the personal quality that was first spoken of by those who remembered him. This wonderful voice and his knowledge of music, said to have been remarkable, caused him to be selected to sing "The Breaking Waves Dashed High," on one Forefathers' Day at Plymouth.
The twenty-four years of his ministry were peaceful ones. He was a man of poetic temperament, and unusually learned in the Natural Sciences. He prepared many young men for college, as was still customary for clergymen of his day. His History of Scituate, published in 1831, is considered to be one of the best town histories from a literary standpoint, and considering the wide scope of its matter, is remarkably free from errors. The simplicity of its language, and its easy, graceful style of treating subjects, often found uninteresting to the average reader, makes of it a modern classic. A few of his other writings have been published : "The Populous Village," a poem delivered before the Philermenian Society of Brown University in 1826; "Discourse on Christian Liberty," 1824 ; and, at various times, others of his sermons. A valued possession of the James Library is a volume in manuscript of his unpublished poems, copied for the library by his daughter, Mrs. Helen Deane Rockwell, of Chicago.
The meeting-house upon the sandy hill, built in 1770, is the one often spoken of as the " Parson Deane Meeting-house." By 1830 this house built largely of old material, had become ruinous, and a new house was erected that year from plans drawn by William Sparrell of Boston, a well-known architect of the day and a son of James N. Sparrell, an old and respected member of the Society. The cost of the new house was $4650. To meet this expense the pews were sold, and were taken up at an advance of $773, above the cost of the house. The prices ranged from $28.88 to $129.38. Nine pews sold for over $100 each. The nine pews were num- bered thus : No. 52, Samuel Foster, $129 38; No. 51, John Nash, $129.03 ; No. 66, Walter Foster and Elijah B. Turner, $122.03 ; No. 54, Ebenezer T. and Betsy Fogg, $121.03; No. 69, Lemuel and Nathaniel Turner, $118.03; No. 55, Cushing Otis, $116.50; No. 53, Elisha Foster, $115.38; No. 67, Howard Bowker, $108.38 ; No. 68, Sarah Delano, $105.38. This sale was completed in three hours. Two gifts were made to the new Church, the clock still in place on the front of the gallery, the gift of Hon. Cushing Otis, M. D., and the fine-toned organ from his brother, Thomas Otis, Esq., of New York. At a Parish meeting held March 21, 1831, these gentlemen received a vote of thanks for their "acts of munificence." The silver communion service was another gift of the same approximate period. The flagons and patens, two of
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each, were the gift of Mrs. Hannah Cushing in 1833. She was the widow of Chief Justice William. The four communion cups were a later gift, that of Mrs. Abigail T. Otis, widow of Doctor Cushing, M.D., in 1843. In this connection we might add, that the clock on the church spire was a gift in the late eighties of William and Julianna Sparrell, in memory of their father, who was the architect of the church.
In 1831, the death of his son, John Milton Deane, a boy of great promise, was a crushing blow to the father, already weak- ened by severe illnesses. His failing health had decided him to consider retiring from the ministry and removing to Illinois, but before the move was made Mr. Deane was stricken with his fatal illness, and died in August, 1834. His funeral was very largely attended, and the procession extended from his home to the house of John Nash. This long procession of friends and parishioners wending their way two by two on foot, as was the custom of the day whenever the distance allowed, must have been an impressive sight as they gathered around his final resting-place upon the top of the knoll in the cemetery. In this same plot, the remains of Doctor Barnes and his wife were interred in a tomb covered with a granite slab. Soon after the death of Mr. Deane, his family re- moved to the vicinity of Pekin, Ill., where Mrs. Deane's relatives resided.
In October, 1836, began the pastorate of a most remarkable man, that of Samuel Joseph May, at that date Agent of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. Rev. William P. Tilden tells of the call extended him by the Church. He says : "Our Parish had been since the death of Mr. Deane without a pastor. We had had many candidates, to whom I had listened with great interest. At last, the Reverend Samuel J. May, who had served for a year as Agent of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, came as a candidate, and although there was not much Anti-Slav- ery among us, we were all delighted. While he was perfectly out- spoken on the questions dear to his heart, he was so genial and so kind that he won us all, and disarmed prejudice so completely, that he received a unanimous invitation to become our Pastor, which he accepted." In an address to his Society in Syracuse, N.Y., in 1867, Mr. May said of his call to the Scituate Church, " I was first known there as an anti-slavery lecturer, so the people knew what to expect. Nevertheless, only two persons voted against my settlement, and a large portion of the Society ere long became Abolitionists."
Mr. May came to South Scituate from his first parish at Can- terbury, Conn., the first Unitarian church in that state. While there he had become greatly interested in the public schools, and did much to put the Connecticut school system on a par with
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that of Massachusetts. Throughout his whole life he was the re- former as well as the Pastor. No wrong was too trivial or too great to be rectified with all the force of his character. Before settling in the ministry, a visit to the South had made him deter- mine that the abolition of slavery must come, and he then de- clared that he would take a decided hand in it. So it was with the Temperance question. While at Canterbury he visited Bos- ton, and there attended a business meeting of the " Massachu- setts Society for the Suppression of Intemperance," at which Doctor Lowell of the West Church declared that their methods had not struck deep enough, and advocated the principle of total abstinence. The American Total Abstinence Society was formed that year. Into this cause Mr. May threw his whole heart and the influence of his eloquent tongue. In Scituate he found a wide field of labor for the lines in which he had become interested -the improvement of the common schools, Total Abstinence, Universal Peace and the Anti-slavery cause. Horace Mann said that he found more interest in common school education in Ply- mouth County than in any other one part of the State, and traced it to Mr. May's active interest, in a large degree.
Soon after coming to South Scituate, Mr. May gathered the young people of his Society in the pews of the gallery in the Church, and organized the first Sunday-School with a member- ship in the beginning of about twenty-five members, acting as its Superintendent in conjunction with William P. Tilden. He insti- tuted the " Cold Water Army " composed of children from all parts of the undivided Town of Scituate, nearly five hundred in number. They marched through the streets with Mr. May at their head, with music and banners flying and presented quite an imposing appearance. They held picnics in the groves and fields, many of them given the names of famous battle-fields of history. The large field near his home was christened "the Field of Waterloo." Rum selling was then common in all parts of the Town, but the influence of this army of children caused all but one shop to close. At last this obstinate seller capitulated. Mr. May resolved to celebrate the event by a public execution. The Army had purchased all of the rum, brandy, wine, cider and beer that was in the dealer's stock, and this was dragged on a wagon to the execution ground, in the field in front of the old Cushing farm-house at Belle House Neck. A trial was held, the verdict given, the sentence pronounced, and at the command the executioners stepped forward and dispatched the culprit, repre- sented by the purchased liquors, and poured his blood upon the ground. At least two of the banners of the Army have been preserved as interesting relics.
The personal interest and instruction given to William P.
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Tilden, then a young married man, changed the whole course of his life. A young ship-carpenter, he was endeavoring to fit him- self for the ministry, handicapped by only a common-school edu- cation and a growing family that made necessary his regular work in the shipyards from sun to sun. Through Mr. May's in- terest, time was found for study during the evenings and the stormy winter season, and the journey from the shipyard to the pulpit was successfully made.
Mr. May's home for five years of his pastorate was in the house now known as the "May Elms." The beautiful trees that are its greatest feature, were planted by him while living there. After a six years' pastorate, said by him to have been six of the happiest years of his life, Horace Mann persuaded him to under- take the principalship of the Lexington Normal School, which has since been removed to Framingham. On the establishment of the Normal Schools by the State, a number of bright young girls of his Parish were induced to enter the school at Bridge- water. One of these was Caroline Tilden, a sister of the Rever- end William. Mr. May considered her to be an ideal teacher, and he accepted the principalship of the Lexington School on the condition that she should be his assistant. Mr Mann has said that her teaching had never been excelled, if it had been equalled.
Mr. May removed from South Scituate in the fall of 1842. Occasional visits were made to his old Parish here, in the years that followed. The last one during the summer of 1867, while pastor of the Unitarian Church of Syracuse, N. Y., was shortly be- fore his death.
The Parish was without a settled pastor until the following spring of 1843, when a call was extended to William Oxnard Moseley of Newburyport, recently graduated from the Harvard Divinity School. Mr Moseley remained here until some time in 1847, when he resigned his charge on account of ill-health. He is remembered as a highly cultivated gentleman and scholar. During his pastorate the organization now known as the Ladies' Aid Society was begun, under the name of the South Scituate Sewing Circle, with a charter membership of forty-seven active and six honorary members. This organization has been of great value to the Society since its inception.
The next minister of the Church was the Reverend Caleb Stetson, a man of mature years and experience, who had been for twenty-one years the Pastor of the Unitarian Church at Med- ford, Mass. Like his friend, Samuel J. May, he was devoted to the Anti-Slavery Cause, and was one of the early advocates and prime-movers for Total Abstinence. It was during Mr. Stetson's ministry, in the year 1855, that Henry A. Turner, then a young
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man of twenty-seven, lately returned to his native town, was made Superintendent of the Sunday-School, a position that he has faithfully filled until the past year, a remarkable service of more than sixty years.
Mr. Stetson was a descendant of Cornet Robert Stetson of Scituate, and was Pastor of the Church of his ancestor from 1848 to 1858, when he removed to Lexington. His home in South Scituate was in the house of the late Seth Foster, which had been purchased by a syndicate of his parishioners for a parsonage.
In September, 1859, a call was extended to the Reverend Wil- liam A. Fuller, who was installed in November of that year. He came to the Church from Barre, Mass., and remained until the autumn of 1864. He was much interested in the Sunday-School, and visited each home in his search for children to be enrolled, and was able to gather one hundred and twenty-five members. The first special observance of Christmas in the Church was ar- ranged by him, and the service, which was an innovation in this section, drew a large audience. During the trying days of the Civil War, his sermons are remembered as of great interest. Both Mr. and Mrs. Fuller worked with much enthusiasm for the United States Sanitary Commission, and much material was col- lected, and garments made for it by the Sewing Circle, which merged itself temporarily into the Soldiers' Relief Society of South Scituate. About one hundred members responded to the first call from the pulpit for workers on hospital supplies.
Mr. May had always kept in close touch with his former Parish, and was aware that they were seeking for an acceptable candidate to succeed Mr. Fuller. Sometime during the winter of 1864, he urged the Reverend William H. Fish, who for some years had been an Agent for the American Unitarian Association Mission- ary Society in central New York, to go to South Scituate as a candidate. This he did, and although the town seemed a quiet one, Mr. Fish was most favorably impressed by the people. He was a candidate during the summer of 1865, and a call was ex- tended him in the early fall. This he accepted, and began in November his twenty-year pastorate.
Mr. Fish had seen considerable active service as a minister in Millville, Mass., at Hopedale, as a member of Reverend Adin Ballou's Hopedale Community until 1856, when he went to cen- tral New York. The Restorationist denomination, at first a part of the Universalist organization, had been absorbed by the Unitar- ian Church, and Mr. Fish began his labors as a Unitarian in New York State. There he had taken an active part in the Anti-Slav- ery struggle. Both there, and at South Scituate, he was devoted to Universal Peace, Anti-Slavery, Temperance, and Equal Rights. His home until 1878 was at the " May Elms," and that year the
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present parsonage was remodelled for his occupancy by the generosity of Miss Abigail T. Otis and Mr. Nathan Cushing. The house came into the possession of the Parish at their decease, according to arrangements agreed upon between the two parties.
In 1867, the meeting-house, erected in 1830, having had no ex- tensive renovations since its erection, was frescoed, and new car- pets were laid. At this time, the two western windows were re- moved; their places upon the west wall being filled by the tab- lets that are now in place there. The mahogany pulpit, with its damask drapery behind it, was replaced by the present reading- desk. Three hundred and seventy-five dollars towards the expense of the renovations were donated by the Ladies' Aid Society, re- organized under that name from the old Sewing Circle.
While preparing for the ministry, Mr. Fish was teaching in . Illinois, and there made the acquaintance of Josiah Leavitt James, who was born in South Scituate. When Mr. Fish settled here in 1865, Mr. James had become a resident of Chicago, where he had acquired more than a comfortable fortune. His wife was a sister of the wife of the Reverend Mr. Deane. Through Mr. Fish's influence, he became greatly interested in his native town, and wished to do something for it in a practical way. In this project he was encouraged by his niece, Hannah Packard James, at that period the librarian of the Newton Public Library, who informed him that the Parish was about to make an attempt to replenish its Sunday-School library. To aid this project, Mr. James sent to Mr. Fish his check for $1000, the money to be safely invested, and the income used for the purchase of books. This gift to the Sunday-School library created in the Parish a de- sire for a more general library ; but before the idea had developed and any action taken, another check for $1000 was received from Mr. James for the purchase of books for that purpose. In 1871 about three hundred volumes were purchased, and a small room fitted up for them over the South Scituate Savings Bank. In 1872, Mr. James wrote Mr. Fish that he would give $1000 for a library building, provided the Parish would raise a like amount. Subscriptions for the purpose amounting to nearly $4000 were re- ceived from members of the Parish and former residents. The largest subscription aside from that of Mr. James was received from Nathaniel Cushing Nash of $1000; and the next largest that of the Ladies' Aid Society, the proceeds of a fair and other means, of $600. Generous amounts were received from others. The present building was built during the autumn and winter of 1873-4, at a cost of about $5000, from plans of William Sparrell. It was dedicated and opened on May 1, 1874. At various times it has been a beneficiary in the wills of several past members of the Society ; acquiring its largest amount from the estate of Miss
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Prudence C. Delano, when it received one-third of her estate. The number of volumes at the present time approximate five thousand.
While the James Library is the greatest monument to Mr. Fish's twenty-year service, he worked with untiring zeal for the welfare of the community, although failing eyesight was a great handicap during his last years. Before his death he became almost totally blind. His energies were ever directed toward a healthy, moral social life for his people, endeavoring by means of lectures on topics of the day, to keep the community, rather an isolated one, in touch with modern affairs.
After his resignation in 1895, he continued to reside in the parsonage house until 1901, when he removed to Newport to his . sister's home. While there, he returned to preach once again from his old pulpit, at the age of ninety-one, an occasion to be re- membered with love and reverence. The last years of his life were spent with his son in Meadville, where he died in February, 1906, within one month of his ninety-fourth birthday. He was buried beside his wife in the First Parish cemetery, near the Church of which he was so long time a Pastor.
The changing conditions of modern life were ending the long pastorates in country churches, with the passing of the ministers of Mr. Fish's generation. The old town of South Scituate had, a few years before, changed its name to its present one of Nor- well, and the Church then became known as the First Parish Church of Norwell. In 1886, the Reverend John Tunis from New York was called to the office made vacant by Mr. Fish's resignation. Being a new worker in the Unitarian ranks, he was both ordained and installed on taking up his work in this place. Coming from the Episcopal Church, he felt that the simple ser- vice common in our Churches would be enriched by a more litur- gical one, and he made changes in it that were instrumental for good. A special Easter service was another innovation. He instituted the "Two Mile Missions," holding services in school- houses about two miles apart, during the summer of 1883. In the autumn of that year, he was granted the favor of supplying a substitute, that he might make a European tour, and the Rever- end William H. Brown from West Bridgewater occupied the pul- pit for several months. In the spring of 1889, Mr. Tunis accepted a call as colleague to the Reverend George Briggs, D.D., of the Third Unitarian Society of Cambridge, at Cambridgeport.
In the spring of 1890, the Reverend William H. Spencer, from Providence, accepted the pastorate, serving the First Church of Scituate in connection with it. Of energetic type and modern thought, he put new life into the Society. His Sunday evening services, then unfamiliar, were likewise inspiring. Not content
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with full service on the Sabbath, he filled the week-days with helpful affairs. Much was probably lost to the Church and Soci- ety by Mr. Spencer's retirement at the end of that year, for he was filled with Christian enthusiasm and an eager wish to serve the people of his Church and section.
The Reverend Thomas Thompson, from Lexington, came to the vacant pulpit in November, 1891, remaining until 1901, a long pastorate for modern days. The work of the Sunday-School was faithfully carried on by him, and the Young People's Christian Union, a society of great worth to the Church and community for more than ten years, was formed through his efforts.
His successor for three years was the Reverend Horatio Ed- ward Latham, now at North Attleboro. On his resignation in 1905, he left many friends who have followed his career with in- terest. In October following his resignation, the seventy-fifth anniversary of the dedication of the present house of worship was observed. The service was conducted by the Reverend William Channing Brown, New England Field Secretary of the American Unitarian Association, a son of the Reverend William H. Brown, who had filled the pulpit for a short period. In honor of the occa- sion, Mr. Brown preached from the text given in the sermon of the Reverend Samuel Deane, seventy-five years before, and the hymns sung at the dedication were also rendered.
During the late winter and spring of 1906, several young men, soon to graduate from the Theological School at Meadville, came to the Society as candidates. Among them were the Reverend Samuel R. Maxwell, now settled over the Second Church of Bos- ton, and the Reverend Chester Arthur Drummond, Pastor of the First Church of Somerville. Both were received with much favor ; but, before an invitation was extended to either, Mr. Maxwell had accepted a call to Walpole, N.H. The invitation extended Mr. Drummond was accepted, and he began his first pastorate in June, in season to celebrate with the Church the conclusion of Mr. Tur- ner's fifty years service as Superintendent of the Sunday-School. Mr. Drummond was greatly interested in the School, and did much to increase its membership. During his two years pastorate he worked zealously and untiredly to interest and aid the young people of the Parish. His work with the " shut-ins " was produc- tive of help and inspiration to a number who were unable to at- tend service on Sundays or participate in any way with the Church life, either from advanced age or from illness. At the end of his second year's work, he accepted a call to the First Church of Littleton, Mass.
In 1908, the Reverend William E. Ennis came to the Church from Yarmouth, Maine. For two years the Church work and in- terests were carried on satisfactorily ; but at the end of his second
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year, his preaching became so markedly influenced by the teach- ings of Christian Science as to be seriously objectionable to the members of his Parish, who were strongly opposed to any appear- ance of approval by the Society of such views or practices, and Mr. Ennis' resignation was unanimously accepted. Mrs. Ennis' work with the girls in the Sunday-School resulted in the forma- tion of two societies -a Lend-a-Hand Club of little girls, who gave their earnings to the Children's Mission, and a Circle of the " King's Daughters " among the older girls.
The Reverend Edward L. Houghton came to the Church in June, 1911. Under his leadership for five years, the work showed renewed activity. A Branch of the National Alliance of Unitarian and Other Christian Women was formed with Mrs. Houghton as its first President. Her interest in the work of the organization placed the Norwell Branch on a firm footing, and since her de- parture, the work has been continued with equal interest. Mrs. Houghton is a State Director of the National Society. The Rev- erend Howard Charles Gale, the present Pastor, came to the Society in November, 1916.
This Church, founded in 1642, has, for the two hundred and seventy-five years of its life, been the Community Church, minis- tering to people of all denominations. Until 1730, it was the only Church within the present town limits, and it has been the only Church in the community since its organization. That its service may be as broad and far-reaching in the future as it has been in the past, leading and directing to all that is best in every genera- tion, is the earnest desire of its members and supporters.
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1904878
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The following is a list of the Elders and Deacons of the Church so far as it has been possible to secure their names :
Elders
WILLIAM HATCH .
THOMAS KING
Deacons
Thomas King, Jr.
Stephen Clap
Joseph Cushing
Thomas Robinson
Joseph Tilden
James Torrey
Hatherly Foster
John James
Joseph Cushing, Jr.
Joseph Clap
John James, Jr.
George King
Elisha James
Elisha Foster
John James, 3d
John Ruggles
Joshua Jacob
Joshua James
Charles Foster
Ebenezer Stetson
George B. Tilden
Henry A. Turner
George C. Turner
Horace T. Fogg
J. Lyman Wadsworth
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Officers and Committees, 1917
Parish Committee HORACE T. FOGG, Chairman
Henry C. Ford
Ernest H. Sparrell
Library Committee JOSEPH C. OTIS, Chairman
Joseph F. Merritt
Mary L. F. Power
Elliott W. Crowell Marion G. Merritt
Clerk George C. Turner
Treasurer
Elliott W. Crowell
Librarian
Marion G. Merritt
Alliance of Unitarian Women
Mrs. Mary L. F. Power
President
Mrs. Mary J. Turner, Miss Hester G. Howland . Vice-Presidents
Mrs. Ada P. Maxwell ·
Secretary
Mrs. Lulu B. Ford
. Treasurer
Ladies' Aid Society Organized 1846
Mrs. Emma J. Turner
President
Miss Hester G. Howland . .
Vice-President
Mrs Abbie L. West .
·
Secretary
Mrs. Ada P. Maxwell ·
· Treasurer
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First Parish Fund Corporation
Incorporated February 26, 1799
Trustees
Joseph H. Corthell
Chairman
Horace T. Fogg .
Treasurer
Henry C. Ford
Arthur L. Power
Joseph F. Merritt
Endowment 1917
Preaching Funds .
$30,598.36
James Library Funds
9,985.53
Sunday-School Funds
2,000.00
Worthy Poor Funds
466 85
Burying Ground Fund
100.00
$43,150.74
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Communicants, 1917
HENRY ABIEL TURNER
MARY JANE TURNER EVELINA FOSTER
PRISCILLA STETSON
HELEN HAMBLETON TORREY
MARY LOUISA FOSTER POWER GRACE GILLINGHAM
BERTHA CAMPBELL
SARAH FRANCES BRIGGS
EVA SOPHRONIA BURNS
HORACE TOWER FOGG
ISABELLA FAULKNER FOGG
HENRY COLMAN FORD LULU BLANCHE FORD
JOSEPH LYMAN WADSWORTH
JEROME FERDINAND WADSWORTH
ALICE KINGSBURY WADSWORTH
HESTER GERTRUDE HOWLAND FLORA ESTELLA BURNS
GEORGE CLARENCE TURNER
IRVING RUSSELL HENDERSON WARREN DAVIS VINING
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Members of First Parish
James H. Barnard
Mrs. Emma H. Bates
Miss Edna E. Brownell George S. Corthell
Joseph H. Corthell Elliott W. Crowell
Horace T. Fogg
Henry C. Ford
J. Warren Foster
Irving R. Henderson
Mrs. Sarah C. Hunt
Mrs. Nellie F. MacDonald Mrs. Alice C. Merritt
Miss Marion G. Merritt
Mrs. Elizabeth W. Otis Mrs. Mary L. F. Power Jesse Reed William C. Remy
Herbert E. Robbins
Mrs. Mabel A. Sparrell
Mrs. Susan M. Sparrell George E. Torrey Walter R. Torrey Mrs. Emma J. Turner Henry A. Turner Herbert S. Turner William D. Turner J. Lyman Wadsworth Harrison Wilder
Mrs. Emeline B. Barnard
Miss Sarah F. Briggs Charles A. Bruce
Henry J. Corthell
Mrs. Mercy C. Corthell
Harry T. Fogg
Mrs. Isabella F. Fogg
Mrs. Lulu B. Ford
Mrs. Evalina B. Foster
Miss Hester G. Howland Emanuel P. Joseph
Mrs. Ada P. Maxwell Joseph F. Merritt
Joseph C. Otis
Arthur L. Power
Howard S. Power
Annie M. Reed
Mrs. William C. Remy
Ernest H. Sparrell John H. Sparrell Miss Maria W. Tolman
Howard C. Torrey
Mrs. Helen H. Torrey George C. Turner Mrs. Mary J. Turner Nathan S. Turner Warren D. Vining John F. Wilder
Lester D. West
29
23
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