USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Georgetown > Georgetown: story of one hundred years, 1838-1938 > Part 2
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But the Georgetown end of the original parish proved so attractive that in a few years the number of families had doubled and the demand increased for a church of their own. In 1725-26, after repeated meetings, it was decided to build a meeting-house on a site a few hundred feet away from what later became the Humphrey Nelson place. The frame was raised June 5, 1729. The next step was, on May 27, 1730, to petition the General Court for the establishment of an independent parish. The petition was granted the following year and Rev. James Chandler, twenty-five years old, and a Harvard gradu- ate, became the first pastor. His ordination was on October 18, 1732.
Committee of Clergymen
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Left to right-Rev. Glenn Tilley Morse, Rev. W. Irving Monroe, Jr., Rev. Samuel M. LePage, Ph.D., chairman; Rev. Fr. Stephen J. O'Brien, Rev. George W. Smart
Page Ten
SEEKING THE WEST PARISH
Hidden away in the State archives is the quaintly worded petition of forty- four residents of the westerly part of Rowley asking the General Court, in 1730, to establish the territory, later known as New Rowley and Georgetown, as a separate parish. It is a document somewhat illegible but precious to the historian. The petition was granted, after a visit to the district by a committee of the General Court, but the record of favorable action has not been found in the archives. The petition follows:
To His Honour William Tailer Esqr Lievt Governr & Commander in Chief in and Over His Majesties province of the Massa Bay To the Honble His. Majties Council & the Honourable House of Representatives of sd province in General Court assembled at Cambridge May 27 1730
The petition of Sundry of the Inhabitants of Rowley living in the Westerly & Norwesterly parts of said Town
Humbly sheweth
That the Town of Rowley for the encouragement of the publick Worship at a legal meeting held 16th March 1702/3 agreed & voted that those of the Inhabitants that lived at the norwest of Rye plain & long Hill and joined with the farmers of Newbury in building a new meeting house should be abated their ministerial rates in Rowley, if they with their Newbury neighbours should maintain an orthodox minister to teach in said House until such time as it should be judged there was a Sufficient number to maintain a minister in the norwest part of Rowley &c as by a Copy of the said vote in part recited & herewith exhibited may appear, and the said Rowley Inhabitants were then exempted accordingly, being then with their Newbury neighbours, erected into a distinct precinct called by the name of Newbury ffalls or Byfield parish, wherein the publick worship is to this day maintained That in May 1707 a partition or divisional Line was Setled by the said Town of Rowley between those of the Inhabitants belonging to the first or old meeting house, and those Set off to the said precinct as to the rates to the ministry which appears by a vote of the 13th of sd month, & by which the Inhabitants have since been assessed. That the said Town of Rowley further to encourage the public worship at a legal meeting held the twentieth of January 1724/5 agreed & voted to Settle a Line between the Easterly & Westerly parts of said Town in order for building a meeting house in the westerly part, by such certain mets & bounds as in the said vote are Setforth & described, & on Such Conditions as are therein mentioned, which by the said vote also appears, all which the said Westerly part have with great Cheerfulness embraced & com- plied with So far as time has admitted, & are Still acting agreeable to the said Conditions, having among other things erected and handsomely built a competent meeting house for the Worship of God, and agreed with a Revd Minister who has preached in said meeting House four months and upwards Your petitioners would with all humility further shew, that part of us whose habitation is in the Northwesterlt part of the said Town of Rowley, & within the Line of the ffalls or Byfield parish are become now So happily Scituated Since the erecting this last meeting House that the most of us are Some miles nigher to it than we are to our former precinct, the centermost or remotest being about half a mile nigher to the new than the old precinct meeting House, and those that live to the westward of the new meeting house, Some of which are a mile, after they have travelled that have about three miles & an half further to travell to the ffalls meeting; and considering the number of the Inhabitants of the ffalls precinct is greatly increased Since they were Set off, & much more able to support the Gospell therein without the proportionable part thereof, which the aforesaid petitioners (a Small part of said precinct) are at present Subject to pay, than the whole precinct were at first; and considering also
Page Eleven
the said vote of March 16th 1702/3 which Seems to point in favour of your petitioners, those of use that live within the said ffalls parish by our petition of ffebry 24th last, for the reasons then given addressed Our Selves to them to be Set off from them, & annexed to the new or westerly part or parish in Rowley by the mets & bounds in said petition Set forth & herewith presented, which petition was in the anniversary meeting of said parish read, but they did not See Cause to take notice of it, or vote upon it
Wherefore yor humble petitioners have presumed to address yor Honour, and this Great and Honourable Court and Setforth their State & Circumstances in the respective parts & Conditions thereof, and pray you would of yor known and accustomed Goodness take the Same into your consummate Wisdom & Consideration, and as well for the Ease & advantage of your petitioners as for the advancement of the Publick Worship of God, order and direct that your petitioners Shall be Erected into a seperate and distinct pre- cinct agreeable to the Lines voted and agreed by the Town of Rowley, in & by their vote of January 20th1724/5 & including those of us that petitioned the Falls parish to be Set off from them, by the Lines Setforth in their petition to the said parish the 24th ffebruary last; Or if it Shallbe more agreeable to your Honours wise Consideration that a Committee Should be first appointed to view & Consider Our Circumstances and Scituation (the said ffalls parish being first Seasonably notified of their Comeing) and report what maybe proper to be done in Answer to this Our humble petition, we are willing to be at that Charge, and boubt not but that upon an impartial view & Consideration of Our Circum- stances, they will See Cause to report in ffavour of your petitioners who as in duty bound Shall Ever pray &ca
Jonathan Harriman
John Harriman
Samuel Spaford
Samuel Harriman
Richard Boynton
Jonathan Chaplin
Joseph Nelson
Nathan Boynton
Aron Pengrye
Richard Boynton Juner
Jonathan Wheeler
Jeremiah Nelson
John Brocklebank
Samuel Pearlly
Jeremiah Chaplin
Nathll Mighill
Jonathan Boynton
Job Pengry
Richd Dole
Jonathan Bradstreet
Thomas Plumer
Francis Brocklebank
William Searl
Solomon Nelson
Lenard Harriman
Samuel Hazen
Thomas Burpe
Samuel Johnson
Nathll Harriman
David Parley
William Fisk
David Killbourn
Jonathan Spafford
Benjamin Stickney
John Hazen
Jonathan Stickney
John Adams
Ebenezer Burpe
Jedidiah Pearson
Abner Todd
Daniel Plumer
William Adams
David Pearson
Bennony Chase
Page Twelve
FIRST CHURCH PERIOD
A FFAIRS were moving forward in the Bay State colony from the time of the arrival of Rev. Ezekiel Rogers to the institution of the Church in the West Parish. Ninety-three years had elapsed and slowly the people had become restless. They were quarrelsome and jealous of each other. The stern necessities of taxation had led to distrust of their elected representatives or of their government. The hard life they were compelled to live was enough to shatter tender sentiments inspired by religion or inheri- tance.
But our early Georgetowners were probably not in the least different from their kind in other communities. Bradford had had his troubles with the Pilgrim band from the time of their arrival in Plymouth. Conant and Winthrop, Endecott and Dudley, had troubles in Salem, Watertown, Roxbury and Dorchester. Georgetown was nourished in rebellion against old theories of religion and it was not strange that life should be debated with constantly increasing seriousness, that men should be measured by different standards from the old, that doubts should arise on all manner of subjects, that families should become embittered against each other.
Calvinism was the religion of the day in New England, but sensational preachers were roaming about advocating free will and rebellion, so that when Mr. Chandler accepted the new charge it was not long before he was sorely troubled by the alien influences about him. For so young a man he was in a hard place. He could thunder his opinions from the pulpit, but to get at the heart of the parishioners he realized that he must keep con- stantly among them. So the pastoral calls came into being with a vengeance. This aggressive Harvard graduate spent more time calling than in study. But even when he was housed much of the time in his final years and obliged to depend largely upon his strongest followers to do his missionary work, he was ever available for personal inter- views on serious matters.
Chandler possessed the great practical faculty of keeping his parish interested in matters agricultural and social as well as religious. He was an expert fruit-raiser and men were constantly coming to his rocky farm with tree, family, agricultural and religious problems. It was only natural for the doubters to reason that as he was so skilful and outstanding as a fruit-grower and agriculturist there must be some virtue after all in his theology.
Study of the church and parish records reveals a gradual change in the type of men during the Chandler regime. All but a few of the eighteen subscribers who formed the church-James Chandler, Richard Boynton, William Fisk, William Searl, Samuel Harri- man, William Adams, John Adams, Thomas Plumer, Jonathan Boynton, John Brockle- bank, Thomas Burpee, Daniel Woodbury, Jonathan Thurston, David Pearson, Richard Thurston, Jeremiah Chaplin, Job Pingry, Ebenezer Burpee-lived to a ripe old age, and to the time of the Revolution.
DISCIPLINE WAS SEVERE
It is evident that their sons were more aggressive, more spirited and more trouble- some. With all their lack of schooling, fathers and sons possessed shrewd common sense. They had been used to the practice of depending on themselves for a living and they naturally suspected even their best friends in every private or civic transaction. They were chafing over the severe discipline which the church attempted to maintain. Glance at the church records and see how every action calling for the expenditure of money was hedged about by restrictions and admonitions. Even the setting of a pane of glass in the church building, or a little painting for the pulpit, was given a stated time for completion and a committee was generally appointed to see that the work was done on time and satisfactorily.
Page Thirteen
Chandler saw a breaking away from church discipline, but the rules were not in a whit relaxed as drinking and immorality increased. The private lives of the parishioners were watched with as much strictness in the latter days of Chandler as in the first, and regular church attendance and fidelity to communion was remarkably well regulated. Plainly, to win the badge of good citizenship one had to watch his step.
Even though the church and parish records make good reading and contain much information, they are strangely silent on many things of concern to the historian, or to the descendants of the families concerned. There is not a single reference to town meet- ing affairs or to many other events of general interest to the countryside, such as the service of men in the wars and particularly in the Revolution when fathers and sons were absent for long periods as soldiers before and after the West Parish was founded. We can imagine the sensation throughout the community upon the call for men to march to Lex- ington or to assemble in Cambridge for the later affair at Bunker Hill; and, also in imagination, share the high spirits of the militia who stopped at the tavern on Church Green to slake their thirst and vent their spite on the portrait of General Wolfe.
If Mr. Chandler was not the strong disciplinarian he should have been, as some historical writers have hinted, we may assume that he had pity for a congregation that was obliged to listen (with occasional naps) to his long sermon on Sunday morning, and, after two hours or more of recess in the middle of the day, sit through another .long service, to say nothing of the lecture in between designed to keep the congregation's mind occupied.
Because people complained, after a few years, that they were not being "edified" by Mr. Chandler's preaching, it does not mean that he was a poor preacher. Rather does it mean that he did not reflect, in his views, the developing tendencies of thought away from Calvinism which had become more or less grounded in the parish mind. Month after month itinerant preachers appeared with a new gospel, but Mr. Chandler steadfastly refused to give them a hearing. Affairs became so serious in 1754 that a group of members broke away, later to found with others the Baptist church.
Fifty-two years passed before Mr. Chandler's strength began to fail and efforts were made to secure a colleague. From that time to his death he preached but seldom. It is apparent that fully one-half of the church members of that time were Calvinists and the other half Arminians. Candidate after candidate appeared for years but none was installed until Mr. Braman. Each side was determined to secure a pastor or a colleague after his own heart and the records disclose the monotonous advice to the pulpit com- mittees "to secure preaching as best you can until the next annual meeting." Yet the monotony was varied by the permission given to the committees, "if they could not agree, to divide and allow one-half to supply one-half the time, the other the other half."
On April 19, 1789, in the eighty-third year of his life, and the fifty-seventh of his ministry, Mr. Chandler died. He had married five years after his ordination, Mary Hale, daughter of Rev. Moses Hale of Byfield, and she survived him for five years. Little is known of her, except that she was "a graceful person, of high intellectual attainments and much beloved." Mr. Chandler has been termed "a man dignified in deportment, pleasant and affable, strictly exemplary in his life and conversation, highly esteemed by his people and respected abroad."
The records of the Essex North Association declare him to have been a fruit grower, the introducer and cultivator of all the best apples and many medicinal plants. He was one of the seven founders of this body and his home, in all probability, was the scene of the association's founding. Mr. Chandler lies buried in Union Cemetery, the expenses of his funeral being borne by the parish.
Page Fourteen
SECOND CHURCH PERIOD
T URNING to the second period in the history of the West Parish, which is domin- ated by Rev. Isaac Braman's ministry, we find in the records that as early as 1768 one of the matters for action at the annual meeting was that of choosing a com- mittee to seek a suitable place for a new meetinghouse. The little church building which had served for thirty-six years, with one or more enlargements, had become dear to the parish. But the community was growing and instead of a further addition to the building the majority of the members sought a new building and on a site somewhat nearer the center of population.
As in all previous important matters, the members considered the question at length. Finally, the decisive step was taken and plans went ahead. It was on July 5, 1769, that the new church-dimensions 55 by 40 feet, with steeple and porch-was raised in one day. The site was thereafter known as Church Green, at the junction of East Main and Elm Streets.
After Mr. Chandler's death the church listened to sixty-four preachers, a number of whom were invited but declined to become pastor. On January 26, 1797, a call was extended to Rev. Isaac Braman of Norwood, another Harvard graduate, who accepted. On June 7 of that year, after a long wrangle in the Council session caused by a petition of protest, he was ordained.
We of today can have little conception of the state of mind of the good people of the parish as the new century was about to dawn. Mr. Braman appeared at the height of the controversy ,which swept New England, as it is recorded, "from center to circum- ference." Ministers had fallen from the high tone of former years, the conflict producing men who were theoretical Calvinists but who preached a moderate Arminianism. Professor Park of Andover said that "they professed faith in the Catechism, which formed one-half of their theological influence; they refused to preach its most distinctive doctrines which formed the other half of their influence, and gave it a semi-tone. They believed in the absolute sovereignty of God; this was one-half of their record. But they said nothing of the doctrine in the pulpit; this was the other half. They really denied the divine efficiency in executing all these purposes." This system of philosophy needed a new name and it received it in the characterization, "Merrimack Theology."
As to how Mr. Braman happened to be chosen pastor, after so many years of rejection of candidates, his own explanation may appear sufficient: "I had not studied divinity systematically, was not particularly versed in the isms of the day. My object was to exhibit the gospel in its purity, without considering whom it might please or displease. The consequence was they knew not on which side to place me, and some of the most prominent persons of both parties favored my settlement and some of both were opposed. Among the latter, as well as the former, were respectable men and women."
1
Mr. Braman often related with glee an incident connected with his pastoral calls when he was a candidate for the Georgetown pastorate. It was the custom for a candidate to be taken through the parish that the people might meet him socially. One family had been a divided house on the question of calling him. The wife spoke privately, "I like your preaching very much; your doctrines have the right ring. I wish you would be enabled to settle, but don't tell John this." John took the candidate aside and spoke almost the same words.
Mr. Braman was given 200 pounds in settlement and 80 pounds salary, with ten pounds additional when corn was worth more than four shillings per bushel. This was a good salary for those days. The settlement was payable one-half in one year and the remainder in two years, with the provision that if Mr. Braman should leave within
Page Fifteen
twenty years he should forfeit a just proportion of the settlement. Old-time pastorates were not intended to be temporary.
To describe the scene of the Council meeting in the old Adams house, South Georgetown (still standing), or the following ordination in the unfinished Old South Church, would be futile unless imagination were given full sway. Even the eye-witnesses to the ordination excitement, who have attempted to describe it, tell little. People came from miles about and the roads were thronged from early morning until late at night. If the people did not possess any too much real religion with which to regulate their lives, they certainly liked excitement. It was not the eloquence of a Whitefield that attracted them to the Old South that day. The affair was an event of great human appeal, thus proving again that the Church was the center of all public interest. Carts were drawn up dispensing gingerbread, cider and light wines. Bottles of wine were raised from the out- side to the gallery windows with which to slake the thirst of those who had gained admission but could not get out. Hundreds of persons waited all day long in the hot June sun, knowing they could not enter the church but determined to hear or see what was going on.
The Braman pastorate was more of a steadying influence than might be imagined by a recital of the troubles he endured. One hundred years after the church had been founded he gave a discourse, in which he said: "It is a question whether any religious society in New England was ever more warmly beset on all sides, before and behind, on the right hand and on the left, and by those who made it too evident that they wished her ruin, than this society has frequently been. But hitherto the Lord has helped us. The society has withstood all attempts to divide and destroy it. The Church has stood like a rock in the sea, firm and unmoved, amid the dashing waves; and if, as we believe, she is built upon a rock, the Rock of Ages, she will stand though earth and hell combine against her."
Referring to the construction of the new church, the Old South, Mr. Braman, in the same address, remarked that it had caused considerable excitement and division. Three men of property and influence in the society, he declared, were so disappointed with the measure that they made a solemn but certainly very rash promise, that they would never set their feet within the new house. "What they supposed would be thought of their promise in Heaven, we have not the means of knowing. But this we do know, the Lord heard it, and, we are told, He ratified it in a most awful, and to them, doubtless, unexpected manner. Before the house was finished and fit for use those three men had done with houses made with hands and with all sublunary things and were gone where a building with God is indispensable to the happiness of the soul."
On June 7, 1848, ten years after the incorporation of the town, Mr. Braman preached his semi-centennial discourse, in which he again discussed the affairs of the parish from the first. When he was ordained there were only twelve resident male mem- bers in the church. After his ordination a number of disaffected families left and united with the Baptist society, "leaving us a comparatively small congregation."
Continuing, Mr. Braman said: "In this body there was for a while a good degree of union. But afterwards difficulties arose, such as the work of a variety of sectarian, itinerant preachers, laboring hard to build up their cause upon the ruins of existing societies; lecturers, mock philanthropists, under the guise of friendship for the slaves, have done immense mischief in this place. The Universalist society was made up in a measure from the First Church."
In the midst of all this trouble a gentleman of Mr. Braman's acquaintance from the county of Norfolk asked him one day, as he was walking about the village, "How can you live here?" Mr. Braman added, "But I was not at all unhappy, so far as the appear- ance of inanimate things was concerned."
Page Sixteen
In the autumn of 1815 a church bell was obtained by subscription. Up to that time the church people experienced much inconvenience with regard to punctual attendance. Mr. Braman lived on the hill a mile away, and having no timepiece was guided, as he reported, "by a respectable neighbor, who lived beyond me, and who, others excepted, was sure to repair to the House of God, every Lord's Day, in due season."
As the years passed, church members and church attendance rapidly increased. In 1817 the Sunday School was established and conducted with an average attendance of 220. Three alterations were made on the building before it was abandoned. The first alteration resulted in the exchanging of the square pews and placing the pulpit on the East end. The church was re-dedicated December 6, 1832. Fifteen feet had been added to the East end, making room for twenty-eight additional pews and 132 seats. The second enlargement, with wings, gave room for forty additional pews and 200 seats.
The First Congregational Church is in possession of the gilded top of the weather- vane which for many years did service on the old church; the old pulpit, chairs and communion service. The organ was purchased by Ben. Perley Poore and presumably is an exhibit at the Indian Hill Farm.
The ministers of the Gospel raised up in the old society during the Braman regime were Revs. Joseph and Nathaniel Merrill, Jeremiah Searl, Willam P. Braman, and Richard Thurston Searl. There were also two in the Baptist Society, Rev. Jeremiah Chap- lin and Rev. Charles Wheeler.
The physicians who grew up in the society were Dr. Moses D. Spofford, Dr. John Pillsbury, Dr. David Mighill, Dr. Jeremiah Spofford, Isaac G. Braman and James Trask.
The lawyers numbered nine, and there were three in town during the Braman pastorate, Jeremiah Russell, Benjamin Poole and Jeremiah P. Jones.
If we are critical of the ministers of Chandler's or Braman's period we should not be unfair in our measurements. These ministers knew nothing of the complex society of today or even the more complex family life. Times were simple and the great secret of their success lay in their ability to adjust themselves to a scheme of life which was, at its best, laborious, troublesome and uncertain. Too often one hears depreciation of those worthies-their lack of education, practical common sense, their aloofness, their narrow- ness and bigotry. Such judgments cannot be substantiated in the case of either Chandler or Braman. They not only exhibited scholarly attainments in the pulpit, but shrewdness in everyday affairs and rare qualities of friendship and humanness.
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