USA > Massachusetts > Bristol County > Rehoboth > Historical addresses, poem, and other exercises at the celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the settlement of Rehoboth, Mass., held October 3, 1894 > 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
80
250TH ANNIVERSARY OF REHOBOTH.
Sampson Mason condemned or opposed he condemned or opposed openly, and that he was obstinate therein and incurred the sentence of banishment. He came hither with his wife, Mary Butterworth. They then had three sons. Five other sons and four daughters were born in Rehoboth. Ten years later he was of those who under the leadership of John Myles set up separate worship. At the friendly suggestion of the court at Plymouth, the church gathered by Myles was transferred " to some place not already in parish relations." This place proved to be the unoccupied region south of the present Rehoboth, which became the town of Swansea. Sampson Mason did not remove to the new town until 1672 or later. In his will dated Oct. 22nd of that year he is described as of Rehoboth, but he gives to his oldest son Noah " my house which is shortly to be built in Swansea or that house wherein I do now dwell, that is to say, that house which his mother my said wife shall order him to take." Lands in Rehoboth and Swansea were devised to eight sons and due provision made for four daughters. Sampson Mason died in 1676, but his widow lived to a good old age dying in 1714. He was the close friend of his pastor Jolm Myles, of James Brown, and of John Butterworth his brother-in-law. Nearly all his children settled in Swansea or Rehoboth and reared families. His numerous descendants under many names have intermarried with nearly all the older families of Rehoboth, and our kindred are beyond enumeration.
The church established by Myles was broad and cath- olic in its membership, but its location was not central as the town was afterward settled, and not many years after the death of Myles and his immediate associates, a second church was instituted wherein a still greater effort was made to gather a small community not of uniform faith
81
HISTORICAL ADDRESS.
into one Christian fold. Christian character only was required for admission and no doctrinal tests were applied. A son of Sampson Mason was the second pastor of this church and for more than a century the pastorate was in his charge or that of nephews bearing the family name.
Of my ancestry bearing the name of Mason in this country, five generations lived and died in Rehoboth or Swansea, and the remaining six had nativity in the neighboring city, so kindred in origin and in spirit. My great grandfather, Noble Mason, found his wife Lydia Thurber, in the parent town. My grandfather Aaron Thurber Mason, returned hither to secure my grandmother Mary Bullock, one of whose sisters was the mother of Darius Goff whose name is gratefully perpetuated this in beautiful memorial building, and another sister was the grandmother of the distinguished ex-governor of Rhode Island who is to follow me. This lineage is not ancient as old world families measure lineage, it is not famous as the world counts distinction, but it covers nearly the whole period of New England life and is intensely New England in character. For nearly two centuries it is in and of the local life of this community, reflecting its quiet tone, and may I not hope something of its sterling quality. If one may not be proud of an inheritance, nor puffed up with that which he hath not earned, it is an inheritance in which I have much satisfaction, and I gladly accept the duty and privilege of bringing hither my grateful tribute to the memory of the founders of the peaceful haven which the pious leader called Rehoboth, in recognition that the Lord had there given him and his flock emancipation from strife and contention.
To the sainted Newman, to his loyal and liberal asso-
82
250TH ANNIVERSARY OF REHOBOTH.
ciates, and to you their successors and descendants, I return grateful acknowledgment that Sampson Mason bad free liberty to sojourn in Rehoboth.
anis
8:
HISTORICAL ADDRESS.
An Address By Hon. John W. Davis.
MR. PRESIDENT AND FRIENDS OF REHOBOTH :-
. There are no greetings so warm as those of one's own kith and kin, and no homes so bright as those of our youthful recollections, indeed with the full tide of this day's celebration upon me, I might falter in my allegiance to my residential Town and State, did I not remember that in part, Pawtucket was once part and parcel of that " Antient Rehoboth," whose original settlement is now within Rhode Island limits. In the remarks I may submit, I purpose to speak of " Antient Rehoboth," from a colonial standpoint, or of "Antient Rehoboth " and her early colonists, as a steppingstone to Rhode Island and founders of religious liberty in America.
Rehoboth,-the name we are told implies a wide-open- roomy-place, and for a name I think our fathers chose better than they knew, for Rehoboth proved to be an open door to broad thoughts and principles, as well as an ample home- stead to its colonists.
Locally, " Antient Rehoboth" bounded - approxi- mately-upon a line from Woonsocket Falls on the Black_ stone, to Dighton's famous rock upon the Taunton river, and included all the lands southward to the shores of Narragansett Bay, Pokonoket, (which Ossamequin and his sons had reserved for their homes,)-only excepted.
It is not my province to trace the history of the town; the orator of this occasion and others preceding me have attended to that, but at the risk of repeating " twice told tales " I will venture some commentaries upon Rehoboth's
84
250TH ANNIVERSARY OF REHOBOTH.
colonists and their characteristics, in the early days of the town.
" Antient Rehoboth " was a sort of debatable border- land between the Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay Colonies upon the east and north, and the Plantations of Providence and Rhode Island on the west and south respectively, to which, such colonists as the "brethren of the Bay " thought not quite good enough to dwell with them in full fellowship-but yet not so wholly bad and lost to grace as to deserve banishment to the outer darkness of Rhode Island-were suffered to come as to a city of refuge to sojourn for a season with the hope of light.
It is known that for years before the Pilgrims came to Plymouth, voyaging fishermen and traders had been sailing up and down these coasts, trafficing with the natives and wittingly or unwittingly by their introduction of the sins of civilization (largely condensed in ardent spirits and pestilence) prepared the way for European coloniza- tion.
So too, before the Rev. Samuel Newman and his people came from Weymouth and Hingham into this region, there were pioneers in the land, frontiersmen, like Daniel Boone of Kentucky, who felt crowded when neighbors came too near, or " had settled within thirty miles of his cabin."
Among the pioneers of " Antient Rehoboth " was William Blackstone, famous for his declaration that he " left England to be free of the Lord Bishops, and Boston to be clear of the Lord Brethren."
Blackstone was in no sense a hermit, but a scholarly gentleman, a priest of the English Church and who like a patriarch prophet of old loved best to commune with
85
HISTORICAL ADDRESS.
nature in God's solitudes, (which were no solitudes to him) for the mind of the Creator in every phase of nature breathed responsive to his thoughts. He eschewed man and society not for their humility, but because of their pride and pretentions, as his declarations, (which give us a better insight into his life and character than pages of history could do, ) so plainly indicate.
Roger Williams too, with his friends first came this way and planted within the limits of what afterwards be- came Rehoboth. Having been advised by Governor Winthrop, his personal friend, (though unable to protect him against the prejudices of the " brethren ") to go to the Narragansett Country, he came here and supposed he had found it beside the tide-waters of the beautiful Seekonk, but being warned by Governor Winslow that he was within the Plymouth grant, and by him advised (" to please the brethren of the Bay ") to cross the river, he did so to get beyond their jurisdiction, and there planted the Plantations of Providence, and then and thus it was in the first instance, that Rehoboth became a steppingstone to Rhode Island, for the founders of Christian freedom, a position she afterwards industriously occupied for many years.
Some have argued from a few words used by Williams in an account of his sufferings on his journey of exile, that he came to Seekonk by sea, sailing out from Salem in an open shallop, with his friends in mid-winter, across the boisterous Massachusetts Bay, around Cape Cod, along the treacherous coasts of Malabar, thence through the then little known Vineyard Sound and Gosnold's Islands, on- ward around the wreck-rocks of Sakonett and up the
86
250TH ANNIVERSARY OF REHOBOTH.
Narragansett to Seekonk, but the improbabilities not to say the impracticabilities of the voyage discredit the theory.
Blackstone and Williams were both notablemen of the same colony and times, they knew each other well and were bound together by the strong ties of a common calling and sufferings. Men may rejoice together and be glad, aye, feast and forget, but they who together have endured a common hardship or suffered a grievous wrong are linked together in bonds which naught but death can sever, a comity of feelings which bury all other differen- ces. With these conditions controlling, there can hardly be a reasonable doubt, but that Williamsand his followers came direct from Salem to Blackstone's home (which for prudential reasons was not advertised) and from there went out to find their own retreat upon the banks of the same beautiful stream which flowed by the door of their friend.
Blackstone's home was on the east shore of the river, two miles north of Pawtucket Falls, Williams planted on the same bank two miles below, why this distance between ? Was it as with Abram and righteous Lot that their herds- men might not quarrel ? Allow me to suggest that another was already there, Pawtucket was covered by the homestead of John Hasel, a man like his illustrious neigh_ bors (though not a minister) of finest sensibilities as his subsequent history shows.
When Hasel came to Pawtucket we cannot tell, nor certainly that he was there when Williams came, but we may reasonably infer it, from the fact that first comers into a new territory, take first choice of location, and with the due modesty of a Pawtucket man, I think it may be allowed me to say that the particular choice spot of
87
HISTORICAL ADDRESS.
" Antient Rehoboth " was this self-same Pawtucket site- John Hazel had it -- "ergo" Hasel was the first frontiers- man, indeed it may have been he who piloted Blackstone to his riverside home. Be this as it may, certain it is that he was there present as principal interlocutorand witnessed the treaty of John Brown and his Weymouth friends with Ossamequin (alias Massasoit) for the township in 1641, three years before Newman with his friends came to Rehoboth-that he was in Plymouth in August in 1642 to give an account of his surroundings and belongings in the land,-and again in November of the same year he was before the Plymouth Court and required to profess his allegiance to the colony and fealty to the church-require- ments upon the part of the Plymouth Colony which substantially give us the key to his status and character as one not theretofore of the colony or communion, but a frontiersman at Pawtucket upon the borders of the civil- ized settlements
The people of the church of Mr. Newman rather than Newman himself, were of the Pilgrim of Plymouth type of Congregationalists as contradistinguished from that of the Puritans of the Bay, and that there was a marked difference between them every student of New England history well knows. But marked as this difference may have been, that between Plymouth and Rehoboth in the same direction, (along the lines of a broader Christian charity ) was even wider, and the reason for this feature in the Rehoboth Society is readily traceable to their antecedents in Weymouth-of which our friend Harris from that town has here to-day given us an inkling.
The church in Weymouth had been a perturbed Society,several ministers within its brief existence had taken it in charge, the Court of Plymouth had found occasion
88
250TH ANNIVERSARY OF REHOBOTH.
to intervene in its affairs, and in 1637-8 one Hazard Knollys, a Baptist preacher from London had been in the colony publishing his sentiments, which took root in that town, and a church in sympathy with his ideas had been tentatively organized there, though later suppressed by prudential measures of the Plymouth Court.
Knollys returned to England in 1639-but his win- nowings and siftings from amongst the Weymouth and Hingham people very generally joined in the exodus to Rehoboth and as was natural they took their predilections along with them, the croppings out of which later, gave Mr. Newman all his trouble.
However, Newman if not dominant was prominent among his people, and in 1650-only six years after the settlement of the town, a complaint was lodged at Plymouth Court against John Hasel-Obediah Holmes-Joseph Torry-John Spurr-and others of Newman's parishioners and they were there severally arraigned for heresy-but the Court wiser than the parties complainant, contented itself by administering monitions, and accepting their prisoners as bondsmen for each other (a sort of " round robin " arrangement) permitted them to return to their Rehoboth homes in peace: Evidently the brethren of the Bay, some of them having been parties to the complaint, were indignant at this Plymouth tolerance, and waiting their chance, to make an example, in July 1651-arrested Obediah Holmes, with two friends -- Clarke and Crandall · from Newport, R. I .- at Lynn, and brought them to Boston, where they were charged with contumacy and for preach- ing without a license in Massachusetts, this they did not conceal or deny, and thereupon they were sentenced- Crandall to a fine of £5,-Clarke £20,-and Holmes £50 to be paid on or before the next General Court, or in de-
89
HISTORICAL ADDRESS.
fault they were to be severally severely whipped-a most unchristian sentence.
Subsequently Crandall was released under bonds which were afterward paid-Clarke's friends rallied and paid his fine for him, and thus the Rhode Island men were got off-but poor Holmes of Rehoboth, manifestly had more scruples than shillings, he refused to pay his fine or to allow others to pay it for him lest it should be deemed an admission of fault upon his part, he was kept in jail until October, then taken out, stripped, tied to a post and most inhumanly whipped, thirty lashes, blood springing at every stroke, as was stated at the time.
I know that a statement like this in the light of to-day sounds questionable, but for its verity in every particular I cite you the Rev. Doctor Benedict's "History of the Baptists," published in 1813, and the authorities quoted therein, Dr. Benediet was for many years a most estimable Baptist minister of Pawtucket, and especially distinguished for his probity, charity, scholarship and con- scientiousness, and particularly was he one who would not write without authority or wantonly color an historic nar- rative to abuse or extenuate.
Among the friends of Holmes who went from Reho- both to Boston to intercede for a remission of the brutal sentence was our own John Hasel, the veteran pioneer settler of Pawtucket, but to his prayer both Church and State were obdurate, and all that he could do was to afford his friend and neighbor such support and consolation as the countenance of his presence protesting against the outrage could give.
The cruelty of this chastisement and its inflic- tion eut Hasel even more keenly than it did its more
90
250TH ANNIVERSARY OF REHOBOTH.
immediate victim, and when the tragedy was over, Hasel like the good Samaritan that he was, stepped forward in the silence of speechless grief and took Holmes by the hand. For this expression of sympathy-though he had said not a word-he was forthwith arrested and cast into prison, but grief for him had done its perfect work, the iron had entered his soul, his heart was broken, in prison his mind wandered, he sank rapidly, and his persecutors af- frighted at the result of their diabolism, hastened to turn him out of the prison house, but it was too late, the load was more than he could bear, and he bowed his head and died, in Boston, a victim of " man's inhumanity to man," and so it came that Obediah Holmes shed the first martyr blood, and John Hasel was the first to lay down his lifo in martyrdom for religious liberty in the English Colonies in America, and these men be it ever remembered, were of the pioneers of this ancient town, and friends and neighbors of our ancestors in Rehoboth.
Now, after the lapse of more than two centuries, wo men of Rehoboth and Rhode Island can look back upon the Boston Puritans dispassionately, and see them like many other sectarians of their day, more zealous than wise, forgetting (if indeed they ever appreciated the import of the text) " vengence is mine," they mistook themselves for God's vicegerents, rather than Christian stewards, and honestly no doubt, thought it to be their duty to stamp out what they deemed heresy, without mercy, and they simply practiced what they preached.
Sectarian feelings, like public opinions vibrate from side to side as the pendulum of a clock, and the higher the swing in one direction, the further the rebounding momentum will carry it in the opposite. In Boston, two centuries ago, the pendulum was swung away up towards
91
HISTORICAL ADDRESS.
the nineties of bigotry, superstition and intolerance, to-day it is at the other end of the are, and nowhere on earth is there larger liberty in religious opinion than in Boston, where every phase of belief finds place and scepticism per- chance, too willing listeners.
That " the blood of the martyrs is the seed of . the church " was never more manifestly exemplified than in Rehoboth after this Puritan persecution. The people were indignant, men went out far into the woods to meet Ilolmes and escorted him home as soon as he was able to travel, but poor Hasel returned to his home upon the banks of the beautiful Pawtucket no more, and his vacant place was a potent protest against the great wrong perpetrated. The story of this wicked crime against conscience ran from mouth to mouth, from colony to colony, crossed the great sea, and from every direction protests came echoing back with bitter reverberations and reproach.
Holmes, Torry and others left Rehoboth and went to Newport, where Holmes lived and officiated acceptably as a Baptist minister for thirty years thereafter.
But while many left Rehoboth as a steppingstone to Rhode Island, others came in across her borders from out- side, and Quakers, Baptists and Independents began to abound upon every hand, while the church of Newman was filled with troubles. Indeed it seemed as if the Baptist leaven of Hasel, Blackstone and Williams earlier "free soul" plantings in the soil of the town and permeated the entire earth and people, until all were leavened with the liberal faith.
It is said that at the close of the great conflict of the States, President Lincoln was asked who of all his generals
92
250TH ANNIVERSARY OF REHOBOTH.
he esteemed greatest, to which that wise man character- istically answered, " the General People " they who had without stint or question responded to every demand upon their patriotism. So it was in "Antient Rehoboth" in her days of trial ; and where all did well it would be invidious to single out names for distincton, but for illustration of Rehoboth's characteristics we may recall a few examplars.
John Brown, if not an ancestor, was an antitype at least of him "whose soul is marching on." Though always himself a loyal Pilgrim Churchman, he gave unmistakable evidence of the strain of his blood, spirit of independence, Christian charity and courage of conviction, by bravely standing up in Plymouth Court and protesting against an enforced collection of church rates in Rehoboth. Being himself an assistant of the Court, he pledged his estates and honor to make good for seven years any deficiencies of voluntary contributions for the support of public worship in Rehoboth, and had his pledge allowed, and though he died in 1662 his name has never wanted for an honored rep- resentative in the Town, State and Nation his wisdom did so much to develop. Richard Bullock was another to protest, and so too was Thomas Willett of whom our orator has so kindly spoken. The Pecks, Joseph and his brothers, were eminent exemplars of the same line of thought, and the descendents of all these, generation by generation have maintained it, and made their's, honored names to bear. Sampson Mason, a stalwart Cromwellian soldier, ancestor of the Judge here present, came into this town in 1657 and lent the weight of his great energy to the cause of religious freedom, and I need not add, that his posterity have been honored amongst us and through all the land wherever they dwell as the best of citizens.
In 1663, the year that Parson Newman died, John
93
HISTORICAL ADDRESS.
Myles, a Baptist preacher from Wales, came with Nicholas Tanner, Eldad Kingsley and others of his faith, to the little colony of "Antient Rehoboth" and found shelter from the persecutions in their own far-away land. As an indi- cation of the kindly disposition of the church of the town, Myles though not in full fellowship, was invited to preach at stated seasons, in the public meeting house, and did so, holding forth a liberal fellowship to all professed Christian worshippers, as subsequently his church in Swansea did, and has ever done, and this catholicity of spirit has ever since obtained with the ancient parish church of Rehoboth, as a whole, what differences soever may at times have divided its members among themselves.
But outside of ancient Rehoboth, all were not like charitably minded. The brethren of the Bay felt scandal- ized at these conditions in this town, and Plymouth though exercised in mind and faith, took a conservative course to rid herself of Rehoboth's infidelity. But to do so instead of expatriating the Baptists as the Bay colony had done, she set off to the recalcitrants that goodly southern district of "Antient Rehoboth" which was incorporated in 1667 as the town of Swansea, so named for John Myles' former home in Wales, or otherwise to state the case, Plymouth as a peace offering divided Rehoboth almost equally be- tween the Baptist and Congregationalist Communions of the settlement, to reconcile the people to live in good neighborhood.
Of course the reason of this, the love of peace and chari- ty, was not avowed in the act; (the true reasons for acts of legislation are rarely ever avowed.) None the less that was the underlying cause, of which the town of Swansea was the result and though not all betook themselves to locations in accordance with their thus localized senti-
94
250TH ANNIVERSARY OF REHOBOTH.
ments, the general trend of individual opinions were in those directions, as is indicated in the Judge's citation from the will of his ancestor, so aptly stated here to-day.
A few years later in King Philip's war, Capt. Michael Pierce of Weymouth, (being in sympathy with Swansea and Rehoboth sentiments and interests, ) came to their assistance, and fought the great fight of the Plain, as our orator has to-day told us. Indeed it was a fight worthy of an epic, a battle to the death, a fight which for courage and devotion had hardly a precedent, or repetition until in our own time, Custer and his command fell upon the plains of the upper Missouri, a victim of like strategy at the hands of the same wild race. But though Capt. Pierce fell, he left a vigorous posterity who later settled in the town their father had sacrified his life to save, and his descendants inheriting his spirit, have in all their gen- erations been distinguished for their energy, enterprise and intelligence, and a good examplar of his tribe, I am pleased to note is the honored president of this Society, now in the chair.
About 1690 Jacob Barney Jr. of Salem, where in his youth he had listened to Roger Williams, and later in life been one to assist in establishing the First Baptist Church in Boston, came with his family via Newport to Rehoboth, and purchased a large tract of land on Torry's Creek, west side of Palmer's River near the Swansea Line, where he settled, and some of his descendants still occupy their ancestral acres in the village of Barneysville. The descendants of this family like the others named have been noted for their energy, industry and enterprise, and one of them, our orator, has to-day honored us as an excellent examplar of his family blood, "may their shadows never grow less." I ought to observe in passing from these family names, that
95
HISTORICAL ADDRESS.
the Masons, Pierces and Barneys have been noted for the clergymen they have raised up in their generations, and all with the single exception, (so far as I can now recall) of the Rev. James O. Barney who so long graced the pas- torate of the Newman Church, Baptists and Independents in doctrine or sentiments.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.