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 7
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
While speaking of clergymen I think I ought to say a word of the Rev. Elhanan Winchester, who in 1771 was settled over the First Baptist Church in Rehoboth, and long before the churches in Boston had evolved the broad- er charities of Unitarian Christianity from Trinitarian Calvinism, Winchester had become convinced in his own mind of the final reconciliation of all men to God through Christ, and bravely begun to preach this doctrine here to his people. His sentiments however were not acceptable to his parish as a whole, and he was dismissed. But being an able preacher he did not want for " calls " and proceed- ed to journey through the Colonies and in England, disseminating his faith with great acceptance. Though Winchester had left Rehoboth his ideas had taken root here and grew, and while never dominant, they have ever been prominent Christian sentiments of Rehoboth people.
This be it remembered was in 1771, the same year in which Hosea Ballou the patriarch preacher of Universalism was born, and thus we see Winchester in Rehoboth had preceded this worthy by a full generation. This I men- tion to show that the intellect of Rehoboth was of old alert, and even in advance of the religious thought of the age, and it is not undue to say that Universalism as a theology has done as much, if not more, to promote chris- tianity and subvert bigotry, than almost any other sect, a good personal examplar of which in faith and practice I' am glad to see upon this stage, and to in this way recog-
-
96
250TH ANNIVERSARY OF REHOBOTH.
uize my friend the Hon. Nathaniel B. Horton, who honors a family name than which none stands higher in the town.
The proximity of Rhode Island undoubtedly contrib. uted to make ancient Rehoboth the questionable border ground that it was, which while politically, always loyal to Plymouth and the Bay, was yet ever in religions senti- ments, more in harmony with the larger liberties of Rhode Island, with whose people their most intimate business and social relations subsisted. In such relations " Antient Rehoboth " and Rhode Island were like two rooms in the same house, occupied by different families indeed, but separated only by the thinnest of political portieres and in kindred the families were so intimately connected and blended, that morally and religiously they were as one.
The intensity of the alike distress and disgust, of Massachusetts at these conditions in Rehoboth, is well illustrated in the "motif" of certain transactions con- nected with the settlement of the town of Bristol, which though unwritten history, is none the less true as devel- of ments show.
When at the close of King Philip's War, Pokonoket, (over which though the Rhode Island Charter painly cov- ered it, the weightier Colony of Plymouth had always assert- ed and maintained jurisdiction, ) came by conquest to the English, a strife arose between Plymouth, Rhode Island and Massachusetts, as to which should have final jurisdic- tion over the territory, the dispute was referred to the King, who assigned it to Plymouth, notwithstanding his graut to Rhode Island. Whereupon four notable men of Boston, of whom Nathaniel Byfield was one, in the inter- est of Puritanism hastened down to Plymouth, and bought
NATHANIEL B. HORTON.
97
HISTORICAL ADDRESS.
for £1100 the entire traet, and though naturally it should have been municipally joined with Swansea, these men of Boston ignored that town, as they did Rehoboth, as apos- tate, and at once established a new township which they named Bristol, and proceeded to organize and support it at considerable personal inconvenience and expense. Byfield was chosen Moderator, (which practically meant mastership) of the first Town Meeting and a rate of fifty pounds was voted for the first year, (forty pounds for the use of the church, and ten for all other purposes,) all of this indicated the drift of their purpose to establish Bristol as a sort of outer wall of defense for Massachusetts, against the heresies of Rhode Island, a kind of religious redoubt at the front, or missionary bulwork for the salvation of Swan- sea and Rehoboth. Of course, as it was in the case of the incorporation of Swansea, the purpose was not avowed, nonetheless, these were the reasons, and Bristol the result, of these reasons practically enforced. To give the town dignity and influence to the ends sought to be established, it was made the Shire Town of the County, which too was called Bristol and included all the territory east of the Blackstone, whose waters drained towards Narragansett Bay, and substantially covered about all of southern Mass- achusetts, and these political conditions so remained from 1680 to 1746, when the King's Commissioners established the compromise line which gave about an equal part of the territory in dispute to each Colony.
Of Nathaniel Byfield, the leader of the proprietors of ancient Bristol, it deserves to be said that he was not only a zealous Puritan and successful merchant, but a generous hearted and public spirited citizen. When he left Bristol and returned to Boston which he eventually did, he en- dowed a school in Bristol, which still bears his name, and
98
250TH ANNIVERSARY OF REHOBOTH.
is yet a flourishing institution, and an honor to the donor and to the town. It was at this school that Benjamin West (a son of Rehoboth) the distinguished mathematician mentioned here to-day was educated. Nor yet, after Byfield had left Bristol did he lose or abate his interest in education and the Puritan church, but reaching out from Boston he endowed a parish and school in Essex County, Massachusetts, (this school was long a principal feeder of Harvard University) and the parish took and still bears his name, the Byfield Parish, covering the greater part of the towns of Newbury, Georgetown and Rowley. I was privileged to attend a Sabbath service in the church there last year, and found it in every particular a typical development of the ancient New England Puritan Meeting, and an honor to one, who, though he did not admire the religious polity of " Antient Rehoboth " or Rhode Island, was yet one of God's noblemen. All honor then to Nathaniel Byfield, the founder of Bristol.
As to the disputed boundaries between Rhode Island and Massachusetts, which grew out of these religious piques and prejudices, I may be pardoned if I trespass up- on your time to speak of them.
Plymouth Colony deriving its right of domain from the British Government, claimed jurisdiction over all lands between Cape Cod and Narragansett Bays as theirs by charter grant, while Connecticut from the same British source was granted all lands south of Massachusetts, and westward of the Narragansett. These claims left only the islands in Narragansett Bay and a small section (not much larger than ancient Rehoboth) between the Paw- tucket and the Pawtuxet rivers at the head of the bay uncovered. Roger Williams with his friends occupied this latter traet in 1686, and called their homes the Proy-
99
HISTORICAL ADDRESS.
idence Plantations. Clarke, Coddington and others set- tled upon the bay islands in 1638 and called themselves Rhode Islanders.
Now the staunch religious polity which environed these two little settlements, was of the same fellowship, which under Cromwell in 1649 had beheaded Charles I. and established the " Commonwealth " which titular gov- ernment (" Commonwealth ") was adopted and is still retained by Massachusetts. Now so it was that when Charles II. came back to occupy the throne of his fathers, although for the sake of his kingdom he had promised to forgive his adversaries (with a few exceptions ) he evident -. ly did not forget them, and when Williams who had been exiled from Salem, and Clarke, were sent over to England in Rhode Island interests, they met a personal friend in Sir Henry Vane (who as before stated had been ostracised from Massachusetts in 1636, but, who was now in Eng- land, and a power at Court) and through him they got the willing ear of Charles II. who gave them for their Col- onies of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, the most liberal charter of all the royal grants, and upon points of boundary, provided that the mouth of the Pawcatuck River should be Connecticut's Narragansett limit eastward, hence all that large part of Rhode Island between the Paw- catuck and the Pawtuxet Rivers was long colloquially known as the King's Province, having been practically the gift of the King.
By the same charter strangely indefinite bounda- ries were named as Rhode Island's north-easterly limits. so indefinite indeed that the late Rufus Choate once characterized them as, "as untraceable as Samson's foxes with fire-brands at their tails." If fairly fol- lowed these bounds would have left "Antient Reho-
100
250TH ANNIVERSARY OF REHOBOTHI.
both" with Dighton, Freetown and Fall River almost wholly to Rhode Island ; possibly it was the King's intent, (or more probably, Vane's intent) so to do, as a sort of left-handed compliment or sinister reminder to the more Puritan Colonies, which had taboed him. Be this as it may, these charter bounds were so manifestly in violation of the earlier Plymouth grant, that that colony stoutly resisted them, with the support and aid of Massachusetts, for more than eighty years. But the Kingly prerogative was popular in England and the people of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations steadfastly leaned upon it, until the Royal Commissioners as stated in 1746-7 ran the compromise line, dividing the debatable ground between them.
Rhode Island small as she is to-day, is thus seen to have been much smaller in her beginnings, and may fairly be said to have been wrenched out from between Con- neeticut and Massachusetts, providentially, in connection with "Antient Rehoboth" for the purpose of establishing Christian freedom in America, and like a diamond between an upper and nether mill-stone, she has impressed her character upon her surroundings, and brightened with the grind.
Rhode Island is indeed a small State to-day, though if measured by population, productive industry, wealth and intelligence she is by no means the least in the Union, but small as she is, she was that particular State of the old thirteen which had the moral courage and strength of will, alone, to stubbornly stand out single handed, and refuse to ratify the Federal Constitution, or enter the Union, mainly because her cherished principle of relig- ious liberty had not been guaranteed in that compact, nor
101
HISTORICAL ADDRESS.
would she, nor did she ratify the Constitution or enter the Union until the amendment, now known as "Article I. of Amendments," prohibiting Congress from establish- ing any particular church or religion by law, and guaran- teeing free toleration to all, had been by Congress duly propounded and its adoption practically assured, then Rhode Island ratified and entered, the thus, and by her made consolidate national Union, with the dogma of re- ligious liberty, (the sheet anchor of the little State, to which our "Antient Rehoboth" had been the stepping- stone,) the law of the Nation and the hope of mankind. For all of which under God's Providence (magnifying the work of the humble) our ancestors of this town (with Rhode Island) are entitled to reverential thanks.
I have no time, nor if I had would it be proper for me to continue this discussion. I have already trespassed too long. "Antient Rehoboth" is a rich field for study, and her sons and daughters whether here or in sister towns may well be proud of their ancestors' record, and the blood in their veins. Here for full two and a half centuries our fathers of all faiths have lived together in peace and harmony, and thanks to their Civil Law and Christian righteousness, no act of ecclesiastical diabolism, bigotry, perfidy or infamy stains their escutch- eons.
But kinsfolk of mine, allow me a few words of our own more immediate surroundings and belongings in our Rehoboth of the present.
Here within the confines of the present town, our fa- thers came and dispossessed a race, living in primeval simplicity and dependent almost wholly upon Nature's bounty. Here within Rehoboth's dark woods the last and
--- --
102
250TH ANNIVERSARY OF REHOBOTH.
best great chief of the Wamponoags ( Philip's counselor) Annawan, bowed himself to the cruelties of fate, a captive in the land of his fathers, was taken hence by aliens to his race and betrayed to his death, a victim to the civilized barbarism of his times, and his great "unhewn rock" rifted and broken, "here within our borders" fitly perpetuates his fame. Here upon these hillsides and along these val- leys our fathers for more than two centuries have planted com in springtime with hope, and harvested in autumn with thanksgiving.
Here upon the hearthstones of these quiet country homes, our mothers through ten generations have kept their household fires sending up perpetual incense to Heaven, in gratitutde for benedictions received, and for us who have wandered, our fathers' thresholds have spanned ever open doors, and mothers' fire-lights glowed warm welcomes to our return.
Let us be just too, to the soil once tilled by our sires even though to our sorrow we now view fields of historic industry abandoned, aye, the surface of our town is written all over with ruined stone fence walls, eloquent in their silence of the prosperity and industry of other days, and protesting as earnestly as written language can protest against the neglect of their whilom enclosures.
The wild woods in many places are creeping over pas- ture lands and meadow ground, fallow field and orchard lots, and even crowding upon the carriage way along the roadsides. Here where once all trades and handicrafts found place, no echo now reverberates the voice of many once busy industries. The hum of spindles and cackle of looms once resounding the employ of thrifty youth and adult age of both sexes,are hushed in the valleys, the waters
103
HISTORICAL ADDRESS.
of our streams once turned to toil, now run idly to the sea, and the merry voices of the workers are silent upon the hills. The banks of the river, southward, once at nightfall in spring-time, wont to reverberate the jocund merriment of fishers, who came from all the country round to cast their nets-alike in hope and sport-aresilent now, and even the waters have been despoiled of those abundant finney stores, which came annually to bless the tables of the homes of this town, in our earlier days. Here within my own recollections close upon our southern border the shipyard of Mason Barney ( the honored grand sire of our orator) to which Rehoboth's timber principally contributed, used to launch two ships each season, the building of which gave employ to scores of men, the echoes of whose labors made the air for miles around vocal with the music of mallets, the ringing of hammers, the rasp of the saw and thud of the maul, but all this too has passed away, the old Esquire whom everyone knew and respected, after a long life of great enterprise and untoward vicissi- tudes, has gone to his fathers, his employees, axe-men and adz-men, tree-nailers and caulkers, top-sawyers and pit-men are mouldering with the dust of their toils, as silent as the echoes of their industry and the ships they built, which once sailed every sea the wide world round, have been swept from the face of the ocean, leaving no vestige to tell the story of their voyaging, save perchance, here and there some wreck bleaching on the sands of a distant shore. So too, the brave men of Rehoboth who once so proudly sailed them, are fast fading from sight, leaving naught but the traditions of their brave exploits and bold enterprise as a heritage to the town.
And of the old ship-yard itself there is nothing left to mark the spot, as it was, save only the deserted
104
250TH ANNIVERSARY OF REHOBOTH.
wharf, the bridge and the river slumbering in the bosom of green meadows and woodlands. Yes, the river's refluent tides still ebb and flow, their stinted meets and bounds as of old; and its shimmering surface still gleams and glistens in the summer sunlight, or wave toss at eventide, dances, frolies and wantons to the kiss of the fragrant in-coming south-sea winds, as in days that are gone. Truly " men may come and men may go " but tides and winds abide.
Now what, pray tell me what, are the lessons of these transitions? There is, there can be but one answer. They are the results of an evolution of depopulation, coupled with the developments of mechanical invention, to which Rehoboth by reason of her local situation has been unfavorably subjected. Fixed as she is midway between the great cities of Providence and Pawtucket upon the west, and Taunton and Fall River upon the east, each within an easy half hour drive of her borders, with busy Boston and wealthy Newport not far distant upon the north and south respectively, each and all great mael- stroms of humanity, standing with ever outstretched arms beckoning, inviting, soliciting and begniling the young manhood and womanhood of this town to come to their all-consuming embraces, "'Tis true, and pity 'tis, 'tis true," too many have listened to the song of the sirens for their own good, or the good of their heritage in this town.
But let the good old town and her citizens take cour- age from this time forth, brighter days are uprising for Rehoboth, even now, the horizon is all astreak with the daybreak of a better morrow. By evolution Rehoboth lost, by evolution she shall recover. City life is artificial, and unsatisfactory, in its struggles a few succeed but the mul- titude go down, and were the city populations not contin-
105
1
HISTORICAL ADDRESS.
ually recruited with fresh country blood, they would die out as fires for want of fuel. The denizens of cities are now realizing this, and all who can, are seeking coun- try homes with hope to perpetuate a posterity who may enjoy the fortunes they have accumulated. More than this the people of the country are realizing their advantages and turning their attention to their own more immediate opportunities, even now the current evolution is progres- sing. Wherever we look about this town to-day we see new homes building, each better than the old, with new barns of fourfold capacity of those which served our fathers, all of which testifies that the climate of Rehoboth is whole- some, and the soil of her fields yet fertile, and only wait- ing the renewed upturn of the ploughshare and a kiss by the sun, to smile again with harvests as of old.
With nature's resources abundant to support fivefold her present population, with broadening developments yet to come to her through better roads and the possibili- ties of electric transportation, with all that it implies, Re- hoboth from her commanding position here midst the cities may become not only their market garden, but a garden of New England residential homes. In that day the cities upon her borders may beckon and solicit Reho- botli's sons and daughters, but they will beckon and so- licit in vain.
A few words more and I am done. Within the last century the fields of mechanical invention and philosophie discovery have been explored beyond the seeming proba- bility of like further developments. With steam to speed our feet, and the lightnings our messenger, with great iron liviathans bridging the ocean and linking continents and islands, shore to shore, with wires surcharged with intelligence girding the earth, and breathing reponsive to
106
250TH ANNIVERSARY OF REHOBOTH.
the life of 'its remotest corners, it would seem as if little more could be looked for along like natural lines in pro- gressive physics, although undoubtedly much yet remains to be developed ; hence future inquiries will needs be di- rected to those mental realms, which even in the light of what we think civilization are yet darkly clouded.
Hle would be a bold man who should affect to fore- cast the future, or presume to paint conditions which may here obtain when Rehoboth shall celebrate her next quadra-millenial. I shall not attempt it, but let us hope that the progress of the future may out-do that of the past, as we have many reasons to think it will. I believe we are on the verge of greater intellectual changes and evolutions than the past has shown, and if perchance on that next centennial day, aught of us or of our conditions is remembered and studied, the contrasts developed will be almost immeasurable, and the darkness of even our day and civilization will seem to our posterity surprising, in the light of their then better knowledge, conditions and wisdom.
It was declared of old by Him who knew wherof He affirmed, " that the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head; " I have faith in the promise, I know the exegesis with which the problem is clerically discussed, but choose to take a broader view. What is the seed of woman, but woman's work and influence upon our race, and now after centuries of waiting, the time seems nearing when by the uplifting power of education and better opportunities, woman shall take her place as the vindicator of humanity, an arbiter whose power the lords of the race must respect. Already she is the teacher of the coming generation of manhood and womanhood, as never before,
.
107
HISTORICAL ADDRESS.
and her influence with them through these opportunities is unbounded.
Think you, that when another quadra-millenial shall have rolled its circling centuries round for this ancient town, that God-fearing, man-loving woman, enfranchised and cultivated, refined and powerful, will consent to, or tolerate in her consort sex, the barbarisms she to-day suffers him to commit. I tell you nay, nor will the educated and enfranchised woman of the coming centuries countenance in man the vices she instinctively abhors in woman, again I tell you nay, but by that power which to woman has been given, to make of man what she will, or compel him to live an outcast forever, she will be able to crush out the evil and develop the good in her fellow being, as the skilled gardener destroys weeds, that corn may grow. Thus woman casting her seed, by her work, influence and opportunity, will, little by little as the years go by, lift both herself and her fellow man up to higher levels and better conditions than obtain today, or than our ancestors ever dreamed of, and so onward progressing, until she becomes the herald she was intended to be, of "Peace on earth, good will to men." Then indeed the seed of the woman shall have bruised the serpent's head, as has been promised.
The churches and people of this ancient town have chosen well in these latter years to commemorate the virtues of their sires by annual festivals in endurance. as contrasted with a festival, the most solid of all architectural monuments fail to compare, the cities of Egypt, built of stone, substantial and once thronged with civilized life, are now lost in the dust with their builders the pyramids crumble with decay, and no man can tell their story, the obelisks are obliterate, the sphinxes silent as the ledges from which they were hewn. But the feast
108
250TH ANNIVERSARY OF REHOBOTH.
of the Passover, ordained to commemorate the deliverance of the first born of Israel, is yet celebrated wherever an intelligent congregation of Hebrews sojourn, and such congregation do so sojourn in every civilized city the wide world round, as witnesses of God's goodness to man. So too, the monuments and temples of ancient Greece and Rome, temples only within the shadows of which, Peter and Paul were permitted to proclaim the mission and life of the Redeemer, all now lie low in ruins and for- getfulness, but the feast of the Last Supper instituted to commemorate the passion and resurrection of Him, whom Peter and Paul so humbly preached, is now cele- brated by every enlightened nationality of the globe. So too, let us commemorate this ancient town and the virtues of our sires by festival. What though in our day she may have been an humble town, and we her children an humble people, what though our walks in life may have been alloted to us along the valleys, and our town never have stalked strident along the hilltops of modern pros- perity and renown, as some of her sister towns have done ? we love her ! nonetheless, we love her! the milk and corn of her herds and breasted hillsides nourished us in youth, the lint and wool of her fields and flocks clothed, aye, literally clothed, her roof-trees sheltered and her fire- sides warmed, and more than all else, the dust of those who were nearer and dearer to us than all others lies bur- ied .in her soil, then perish the heart, forever perish the heart that shall forget to honor this, the town of his fa- ther's hope and toils, or fail to speak his mother's praises in the land.
Then friends, let us and our posterity as we would honor God, our parents and ourselves, year by year in autumn come up to this ancient town, in the season of the roasting ears, and as to-day, together eat the harvest home.
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.