USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > Norfolk > History and directory of Wrentham and Norfolk, Mass. for 1890 : containing a complete resident, street and business directory, town officers, schools, societies, churches, post offices, etc., etc. > Part 6
USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > Wrentham > History and directory of Wrentham and Norfolk, Mass. for 1890 : containing a complete resident, street and business directory, town officers, schools, societies, churches, post offices, etc., etc. > Part 6
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To that excellent man is due in a great measure undoubtedly the con- tinuance of the settlement whose early planting here has been described in previous pages.
Mr. Bean, in his sermon preached at the conclusion of the first century of the town's existence, viz., in 1773, in speaking of the first settlers here, says : " They were careful to have the word of God regularly preached to them, and procured Mr. Sam'l Man, a young candidate, for that purpose." And after Philip's war, " when the settlers had concluded to return, so great was their veneration for Mr. Man, and so acceptable had been his labors among them, that it was their earnest desire he should return with them." It seems that while away from Wrentham he had been preaching at Milton, and was about to receive a call there ; but, says Mr. Bean, so great was his affection for the people of Wrentham, and so desirous was he of the plantation's going on, that he complied with their request. In 1692 a church was gathered here consisting of ten members, including Mr. Man; the others were: Benjamin Rockett, John Ware, Eliezer Metcalf, John Fairbank, Thomas Thurston, John Guild, Ephraim Pond, John Vails, Sam'l Fisher. "Mr. Man was ordained over the church and congregation the same day, preaching his own ordination sermon." He had preached about eighteen years previously. " He died in the seventy- second year of his age and the forty-ninth of his faithful ministry." By what I have heard of him, continues Mr. Bean, he was a man of good eru- dition and an accomplished preacher-pious and faithful. He lived greatly beloved by his people, and died greatly lamented by them. He was born at Cambridge, and was graduated at Harvard University in
4
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HISTORY OF WRENTHAM.
1665. He adds, that one of the first men in this province said of Mr. Man that he was not only a very good, but a very great and learned man .*
At a general meeting of the inhabitants in September, 1719, the church, in presence of the inhabitants, did agree that the inhabitants should join them in choosing a minister out of the three that were nominated, viz. : Rev. Sam'l Andrew, Rev. Jonathan Parepont and Rev. Henry Messinger,
REV. HENRY MESSINGER.
The record says the Rev. Henry Messinger, by a very unanimous and major vote, was chosen and elected, by both church and the town jointly concurring, to be the minister of this town to carry on the work of the ministry. He accepted their call by a letter dated at Cambridge, Oct. 2, 1719. He married Ester Cheever, of Cambridge, January, 1720, and was described in the records of that town as the Rev. Henry Messinger, of Wrentham. It would therefore appear that he had already commenced his ministerial duties at that date as the name of Messinger is not found upon the town records previously. His children were twelve in number. One of his sons, John, died in 1814 in his eighty-third year. He served in the office of Town Clerk twenty-one years in succession, when he de- clined further service, remarking that he ought to be free at the age of twenty-one. In 1787 he was again elected, and served seven years suc- cessively, making in the whole twenty-eight years.
A printed sermon of the Rev. Mr. Man is in existence, and also two or more of Rev. Mr. Bean, but it is not known to the writer that there is any manuscript or published discourse of Mr. Messinger. It has, there- fore seemed proper to copy here his letter of acceptance, that the readers of these annals may be enabled to form an idea of the man.t
" To the church and town of Wrentham, grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ. Sirs-I cannot but with great fear take notice of the overruling providence of God in inclining your hearts so unanimously to make choice of myself, the most unworthy and unfit, to settle with you and to carry on the work of the ministry among you. And since your invitation to me I hope I have seriously and solemnly considered how awful great and difficult the work is to which I am called. And when this great work has been set so solemnly before me by others, and I have well thought of my own youthfulness and the little progress I have made in my studies to fit and qualifie me for so great a work, I have been ready to plead and say, how shall I speak that am but a child, and how shall I watch over souls so as to save my own and the souls of others ?- and have been almost discouraged. In the multitude of thoughts within me I have asked counsel of heaven and left my case
* The name of Man appears among the early clergymen and professors in England. John Man, A. M., was Warden in 1562 of Merton College, Oxford. In 1565 he was Dean of Gloucester, and in August, 1557, Ambassador to Spain, whence he was recalled for speaking irreverently of the Pope; and died in 1568. Daniel Man was Professor of Astronomy in College Oxford, 1601 .- Hist. and Gen. Reg.
t Since this was written the writer has learned that an account of a revival in 1741, at which time many were added to the church in Wrentham, was prepared by Mr. Messinger and pub- lished in the book entitled the "Great Awakening "; and also that he wrote a commentary on a part of the Old Testament,
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HISTORY OF WRENTHAM.
there, begging of God that he would direct me in the weighty business before me so as should be most for his honor and glory, your spiritual good and advantage and my own future joy and comfort; and I hope I have not sought in vain. I have likewise consulted many learned, wise and godly men, who with one consent agree that my call is clear and that therefore it is my indispensable duty to comply with the same, as I would not deny the call of Christ. Wherefore, in the fear of God, and with a humble reliance on his gracious promise to his faithful ministers, I accept your call to carry on the work of the ministry so long as Providence shall provide for my comfortable sustenance among you, trusting that God that has called me to engage in so awful a work, who sees my unfitness for it and inability to perform the same, will exercise a fatherly piety towards me with respect thereto ; will daily more and more qualify me therefor and encourage me therein, and accept my sincere desires and endeavors to advance his glory and the eternal happiness of others. And that it may be so I humbly ask your earnest prayers for me at the throne of Grace that God would forgive my many and great sins whereby I am ren- dered so unfit to engage in so sacred a work, and for which I desire deeply to be abashed and humbled before God. Cry to God mightily on my behalf that he in whom is all fulness would in a plentiful manner be- stow upon me the outpouring of his spirit, and adorn me with every Chris- tian grace and virtue, that I may come to you in the fulness of the blessing of the Gospel of Peace. And if God in his due time shall settle me among you, doe what you can to make my work, which I engage in with fear and trembling, easy to me ; and let nothing be done to discourage me. To this end let brotherly love be and abound among you; let every one for- give his brother his trespasses as he hopes for forgiveness of God. Live in peace ; study the things which tend thereto, and the God of Peace will be with you and bless you. And God of his infinite grace grant that we may with united hearts strive to advance his kingdom and glory ; may be mutual blessings to, may enjoy much comfort in each other, and per- form the respective duties incumbent on us, as that when our glorious Jesus shall make his second and iilustrious appearance to judge both quick and dead, we may meet each other with joy and comfort, and give up our accounts with joy and not with grief.
"I am your sincere tho unworthy servant for Jesus' sake, " HENRY MESSINGER."
CAMBRIDGE, Oct. 2, 1719.
Mr. Messinger was ordained Dec. 5, 1719. In 1721 a second house for public worship was built, and was used as such by all the people in the town until Aug. 29, 1737, when the west parish (afterwards Franklin) was organized. A new church was formed there composed of members dis- missed from the old church here, under the ministry of Rev. Elias Haven, who was ordained over them on the eighth day of November of the same year.
The immediate successor of Mr. Messinger says: " He continued in this first parish, greatly laboring in word and doctrine, till it pleased the Sovereign Lord of life and death to put a period to his life and work
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HISTORY OF WRENTHAM.
nearly together. His death occurred on the thirtieth day of March, 1750, in the fifty-fifth year of his age and the thirty-second of his faithful min- istry. He was a gentleman of unblemished reputation, and highly es- teemed for his piety and virtue. He had the character of a plain, faithful, affectionate and profitable preacher. And though he was but of a slender, feeble constitution, yet he was abundant in labors among the people of his charge, and spared no pains for promoting the interest of the Redeemer and the good of souls. It is no wonder then that when all the congregation saw he was dead they mourned for him as Israel did for Aaron."
It is a somewhat remarkable fact that there is no one now residing within the limits of the town who is a descendant and bears the name at the same time of either of the first five ministers settled, although Mr. Man left six sons and Mr. Messinger five, and Mr. Bean and his succes- sors also left sons. The descendants of the first two must nevertheless be very numerous amongst us, notwithstanding the fact that large numbers of them have from time to time gone to dwell elsewhere.
The Rev. Mr. Messinger's daughters were sought in marriage by neigh- boring clergymen. Mary married the Rev. Elias Haven, of West Wrentham, now Franklin; Esther the Rev. Amariah Frost, of Mendon, Mass. ; Sarah, first, Dr. Cornelius Kollock, of Wrentham, and secondly, the Rev. Benjamin Caryl, of Dover, Mass .; Elizabeth the Rev. Joseph Bean, her father's successor in the ministry at Wrentham, and his son James was the first minister of Ashford, Conn.
CERTAIN DORCHESTER PEOPLE AGREE TO CONTRIBUTE TO MR MES- SINGER'S SALARY RATABLY.
Those inhabitants of Dorchester living, as they say, convenient to come to the public worship of God in Wrentham agreed to be taxed ratably for the payment of Mr. Messinger's salary so long as the town of Dorchester would exempt them from paying there. Their names were : Samuel Man, Hannah George, Samuel Lane, Jeremiah Ruggles, Mary Shepard, John Martin, James Humphrey, Samuel Richardson, Mark Force, Solomon Howes.
LOCATION OF NEW MEETING-HOUSE.
In October of this year, having voted that the new meeting-house should stand on or near the spot occupied by the old one, the inhabi- tants determined that it should be "forty feet in length and thirty-eight in breadth, and of such height as may be most convenient and proper for two tiers of galleries, one above the other."
STOCKS.
Another institution, indicating the progress of the settlement in another direction, was established, as appears by the following recited vote : " Agreed with Ensign Eliezer Ware to make a pair of stocks at the town's cost and charge." This useful reformer probably adorned the common in front of the new meeting-house, where its beneficent workings were visible to all the good people of the village as often as the night watch,
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HISTORY OF WRENTHAM.
whose duty it was to patrol the streets east and west one-half mile from the meeting-house, made their seizures and bore the trophies of their vigilance to this place of confinement, where the morning sun found them bound hand and foot.
DR. WARE.
We find that Benjamin Ware was living in Wrentham in 1721 as a practising physician. He was the first physician who settled here, Dr. Stewart, as previously related, not finding sufficient encouragement in the earlier days to remain. At this time the inhabitants living in the westerly part of the town (now Franklin) desired some relief from ministerial charges because, as they say, they " live remote from the public worship and cannot attend on the same without difficulties and hardships." It was accordingly determined that whatever they might now pay toward building the new meeting-house should, whenever they should be set off into a precinct, district or parish by themselves, be restored to them for their use in the defraying the charge of building a meeting-house amongst themselves."
BILLS OF CREDIT.
The Provincial Government having emitted bills of credit to the amount of fifty thousand pounds this town took two hundred and seventy-two pounds and ten shillings, for which trustees were appointed to loan to the inhabitants at five per cent. interest.
The entire tax for this year 1722 was two hundred and ninety-two pounds, seventeen shillings and eight pence.
SEATING THE PEOPLE.
A committee appointed to seat people in the meeting-house were directed to reserve a pew for the minister and his family, and also one for the widow of Rev. Mr. Man; and then to place the men on one side of the house and the women on the other. Schools were established in other parts of the town between the years 1723 and 1728, and in 1725, having opposed the settling of the westerly part of the town into a new precinct, the inhabitants in 1727 prosecuted Bellingham for refusing to renew the bound marks; and in 1728 took three hundred and fifty-one pounds and five shillings in bills of credit of the Province. In 1729 the number of inhabitants over sixteen years of age liable to road work was one hundred and ninety-three. Bounties were occasionally paid for kill- ing wild animals. Jonathan Nutting had one pound for killing a wild cat.
CONTROVERSY RESPECTING FIXED SALARIES.
The patriotism of the inhabitants was so much excited at this time that they with preamble and good set phrase ordered the Selectmen to draw out of the treasury the sum of twenty-five pounds and forward the same to the Hon. John Quincy, Speaker of the House. The controversy between the officers of the Crown and the people had been waged for many years with regard to fixed salaries. The King's Government, fearing the effect of the payment of their salaries to the Royal Governors by the people, in- structed each viceroy to demand of the Provincial Assemblies a fixed salary, believing that he would thus be less likely to incline to the popular
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HISTORY OF WRENTHAM.
interests against the Crown. The demand made by Dudley in 1702, and resisted by the Assembly, was renewed by Shute in 1706 with like result, and, being insisted on, caused violent disputes, the people in the course of the quarrel repeatedly asserting the principle on which they finally appealed to arms against the mother country. Glancing at the facts of Shute's going to England in 1722 and preferring complaints against Mas- sachusetts, of the House of Representatives choosing their Speaker in 1723 and placing him in the chair without presenting him to the Governor for confirmation, and in a variety of ways asserting its rights, especially in voting the allegations of Shute without foundation and ordering £100 Sterling to be remitted to their agent in Europe to employ counsel, in which, however, the Board of Assistants refused to join ; the preparing an address to the King, in which the council refused to join; the ordering the Speaker to sign and send the paper to England; the preparing a separate address by the council, which was forwarded to Shute, and the employment of Dummer and Cooke to appear for the Province-we find that it was not until 1726 that a decision was made before the Lords in trade and the King in council upon the complaints preferred by Shute. The decision, as is well known, was adverse to Massachusetts, and re- sulted in adding two clauses to her charter, viz .: one affirming the right of the Governor to negative the choice of Speaker, the other denying the House of Representatives the right of adjourning itself for any period longer than two days. And Governor Burnett, the successor of Shute, renewing in 1728 the demand that a fixed salary be paid him, saying this was the command of the King; the House refused, but granted him £1,700 towards his support and the expenses of his journey. He refused it, but took {300 granted for his journey. Hence arose a violent quarrel, the Governor remonstrating and threatening and the deputies persisting in their refusal. A statement of the controversy and its causes being made to the towns, great excitement ensued, Boston in a particular man- ner declaring in opposition to the command of the King, in consequence of which the Governor adjourned the General Court to Salem, the House denouncing the step and requesting the Governor to summon them to Boston, which being refused, the court remained at Salem supported by the towns. Here the House resolved to apply to the King; and Belcher and Wilkes were employed as its agents. Grants were made by the House to defray their expenses, but the Council rejected them ; whereupon a sufficient sum was subscribed by the people of Boston and placed at the disposal of the House. The grant of twenty-five pounds made by Wrentham in 1729 was intended for this fund.
SUPPORT OF THE MINISTER.
The bills of public credit continuing to depreciate, the town proposed to take into consideration the present difficult circumstances of the Rev. Mr. Messinger, and make some further provision for the support of him and his family. Wherefore it was voted that a contribution be taken up once a quarter upon the Lord's Day for this purpose for one year next en- suing, and " that the deacons take care to deliver the money so gathered
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HISTORY OF WRENTHAM.
to the Rev. Mr. Messinger." His salary was nominally one hundred pounds, but as he was paid in the depreciated bills of credit of the province the real sum received by him must have been much less. The cost of the late war to the colonies estimated at sixteen millions of dollars, of which only five millions was repaid by the British ministry, bore hardly upon the province. Besides, Massachusetts had contributed her share of the 30,000 lives computed to have been sacrificed in the protracted contest. To defray her expenses she made such large emissions of paper money that gold and silver were not at all in circulation. It seems that a small party favored the calling in the paper money, " relying on the industry of the people to replace it with a circulating medium of greater stability." " Another party favored a private bank, the bills not to be redeemed in specie, but landed security to be given." Another party were for a public bank, the faith of the government to be pledged for the value of the notes, and the profits accruing from the bank to be applied for its support. This party was successful, and £50,000 in bills of credit were issued; and afterwards 100,000 pounds. This currency was so much depreciated that at one time 50,000 pounds were voted to defray town charges and 6,700 pounds for the minister's salary.
The town in 1734, having refused to build a meeting-house for the westerly inhabitants, voted to supply them with preaching, and chose a committee " to clear the town of certain scandalous charges made by Bel- lingham in a petition to the General Court." It was also voted in 1735 that some people with their estates be annexed to Medway, and that a number of families formerly of the westerly end of Dorchester, but now intermixed with the westerly end of Stoughton, who were joined to this town in 1724, may be returned to the town of Stoughton. "One reason assigned for this movement was that the town of Wrentham is now under very mean, low and poor circumstances, their town charges being very great. Adding the charge of the town to maintain the poor would amount, as we suppose, to more than all the polls and estates of familes upon the said land would pay, and also many highways must be made through said tract."
WEST PRECINCT ESTABLISHED.
The town continued to oppose the application of the inhabitants of West Wrentham to be set off into a separate township, but at the sugges- tion of the committee to the General Court voted in 1737 that they might be set off as a distinct parish. Those who were dismissed from the church here formed a new church there in 1738, and Rev. Elias Haven was ordained their minister in November of the same year.
TOWN MEETINGS, TRAINING GROUNDS AND USE OF THE CREEK.
The warrants for town meetings began in 1740, to summon the voters to meet at the public meeting-house in the East Precinct, and in 1742 the town discontinued the practice of warning town meetings from house to house. In 1746 two parcels of land were laid out for training grounds, one of which included all the common land about the meeting-house ; and
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HISTORY OF WRENTHAM.
a grant was made to Eliphalet Whiting of the use of the creek between the two ponds with the privilege of erecting a dam, with the right of the town to resume it on certain conditions.
DEATH OF MR. MESSINGER-ORDINATION OF MR. BEAN.
The church records say " the Rev. Mr. Messinger gave up the ghost on the 30th day of March, 1750, and was buried on the Tuesday following ; that the church and first precinct unanimously invited the Rev. Mr. Joseph Bean to carry on the work of the ministry among them." Mr. Bean accepted, and was ordained Dec. 5, 1750.
Joseph Grant, Robert Ware, Obediah Allen, Ebenezer Guild, Eph. Knowlton, Samuel Ray and John Hill, Jr., declaring themselves Anabap- tists in 1752, were exempted from paying ministerial taxes.
A part of Stoughton was annexed to Wrentham in 1753, and the next year the inhabitants of the West Precinct, praying the General Court to organize them into a separate district, a committee was chosen to oppose the petition ; and at the same time the town voted that " it was not in favor of the excise bill printed by the General Court."
STAMP ACT.
Nothing extraordinary seems to have occurred in the affairs of the town from this date until the year 1765, when the voters placed themselves on record in regard to the Stamp Act, so called, in the following decided language : " At a meeting of the freeholders and other inhabitants of the town held by adjournment Nov. 1, 1765, it was unanimously voted that the following sentiments be recorded on the town book that the children here- after to be born may see the desire their ancestors had to hand down to them their rights and privileges as they received them from their ances- tors, and that a copy thereof be sent to the Hon. the House of Represen- tatives in General Court assembled.
" Gentlemen, as a free and full enjoyment of the inherent rights and privileges of natural free born subjects of Great Britain, long since pre- cisely known and ascertained by uninterrupted practice and usage from the first settling of this country down to this day is of the utmost value, and ought to be contended for as the best frame of government in the world, (though with decency, yet with the utmost firmness; having the strongest affection and loyalty to the King and the highest veneration for that august assembly the Parliament, and sincere regard for all our fellow subjects in Great Britain) any attempt to deprive us of our rights and privi- leges as colonists must be very alarming. And as such we cannot forbear mentioning some of the proceedings of the late ministry, and especially of the late Parliament, commonly called the Stamp Act, which we apprehend is unconstitutional and oppressive, as it wholly cancels the very conditions on which our ancestors settled this country and enlarged his majesty's dominion in America at their sole expense with vast treasure and blood ; that it totally deprives us of the happiest frame of civil gov- ernment expressed in our charter, for by the charter of this province the General Assembly has the power of making laws for its internal gov-
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HISTORY OF WRENTHAM.
ernment and taxation, and that no freeman shall be taxed but by his own consent either in person or by proxy. And by this act a single judge of the Admiralty has power to try and determine our properties in contro- versies arising from internal concern without a jury, which in our opinion is contrary to the very expressions of Magna Charta, that no free man shall be amerced but by the oath of good and lawful men of the vicinage, and by this act it is certain that it puts it in the power of Mr. Informer or Prosecutor to carry the subject more than a thousand miles distance for trial. Who, then, would not pay a fine rather than to be thus harassed guilty or not? What can be worse? If his majesty's subjects in America are not to be governed according to the known stated rules of the consti- tution, as those in Great Britain are, what then will be wanting to render us miserable and forlorn slaves? But supposing that these difficulties were imaginary only, yet we have reason to except against that act as we apprehend, considering the almost insupportable load of debt the province is now under and the scarcity of money. We have reason to think that the execution of that act for a short space would drain the country of its cash and strip multitudes of their property and reduce them to absolute beggary. What then would be the consequence resulting from so sudden and convulsive a change in the whole course of our business we tremble to consider. Gentlemen, as these are our sentiments of the act, we, the freeholders and other inhabitants of this town legally assembled for that purpose, claim a share to join with all the friends of liberty on so important a point ; but when we consider the answer (this day read before the town) of this Hon. House to his excellency's speech at the opening of the present session, so minutely pointing out the inherent rights of the colonies, and the spirit that runs through the whole form, it gives us the utmost satisfaction and strongest confidence under God to rely on the wisdom and integrity of the respectable body of the House, under whose paternal care and protection we have ever been a happy people. And we remain with the utmost assurance that no measures will be wanting by this Hon. House in joining with all the other colonies in such remonstrances and petitions as are consistent with our loyalty to the King and relation to Great Britain for the repeal of said act, which we hope, by the blessing of God, will have its desired effect."
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