USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Ashburnham > History of Ashburnham, Massachusetts : from the grant of Dorchester Canada to the present time 1734-1886 with a genealogical register of Ashburnham families > Part 21
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1752. Voted that all the windows saving the four lower windows in the south side of the meeting-house, which four win- dows are to be glazed, the others to be fully boarded up for the present.
1753. Voted that a tax of ten shillings on each right lawful money be paid by the third Wednesday in May next towards finishing the meeting-house.
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1755. Voted that a tax of three shillings lawful money be laid on each right for doing something for the meeting-house to secure it from the weather.
1759. Voted that Mr. Elisha Coolidge be appointed to bord up the window places in the meeting-house with rough bords to keep out the wet and to make window shuts for two of the windows that are most convenient to let in the light when there shall be preaching there.
In 1760 a minister was settled and in commemoration of the event the sum of forty pounds, to which eight pounds was added the following year, amounting to more than the original cost of construction, was expended, and now for the first time was the house referred to as finished.
Moses Foster, Caleb Wilder and Caleb Dana, one resi- dent and two non-resident proprietors, were chosen to conduct the repairs and assign the several pews to future owners. The work was substantially completed before July 31, 1760, for at that time the committee report the assign- ment of a part of the pews. The ponderous pulpit of the past century was built upon the north side of the room, stairs were erected to the unfinished galleries and there were doors in the centre of the three remaining sides. On the out- side of the room, nineteen rectangular pews or enclosures, constructed after the enstom of the time, occupied the spaces between the pulpit and the doors. Possibly there were two additional pews on the south side, making twenty-one in all. The central space surrounded by the pews was not occupied at this time. First west of the pulpit were the stairs, and next was the pew assigned to the ministry. The next was in the corner and was given to Caleb Wilder of Lancaster, and between that and the west door were the pews of Richard Dana and Moses Foster, Jr. The first pew south of the west door was assigned to Jeremiah Foster.
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Passing by four, possibly five pews not assigned, the first one west of the south door is given to Caleb Dana of Cam- bridge who then owned eight rights in the township. No other pews were then disposed of except the five which filled the space between the west door and the pulpit and these were given to Jonathan Samson, Jonathan Gates, John Moffatt of Boston, Elisha Coolidge and Deacon Moses Foster. The pew of Mr. Moffatt was in the northwest corner and that of Deacon Foster was nearest the pulpit. The report of the committee, each of them having secured a good pew for himself, concludes with the remark, "the remaining pew ground we have not disposed of no other pro- prictors appearing whom we thought had the best right to pews there." This information explains the omission in their report of the names of James Coleman, Thomas Wheeler, John Bates, Wright Brown and other residents.
The German settlers, a majority of whom were members of the church, and others living on the independent grants, not being proprietors, could only come into possession of pews by purchase from some proprietor to whom one had been assigned. Further proceedings of the proprietors were obstructed by the aet of incorporation and in this condition the meeting-house was transferred to their legal successors.
Assuming the powers and duties of a town, the inhabi- tants of Ashburnham in 1765 came into possession and control of the first meeting-house, and in accordance with the laws and usages of the times the town in its corporate capacity began to exercise the functions of a parish. In the settlement and dismissal of a minister the church had a con- current vote, but the control and repair of the meeting- house, the salary of the minister and all other parochial affairs were debated and determined in open town meeting.
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The maintenance of the stated ministrations of the Gospel involved an outer and an inner organization; the first em- braced all the citizens of the town, while the latter was limited to the membership of the church. If, in the present light, such relations appear inconsistent it should be remem- bered that the people generally were in full sympathy with the creed of the prevailing church and that few, if any, were unwilling to pay their proportion of the tax assessed upon all for the support of the ministry. Whatever opposition the system finally provoked in this town, no suggestion of discontent was heard for many years. The early records are a continued narrative of concord and harmony. With unusual nnanimity the people mourned the loss of their first pastor and joined in the selection and settlement of his successor.
During the many years the town continued to discharge the offices of a parish the settlement of Mr. Cushing was the only occasion it was called upon to assume the bustle and parade incident to an ordination of the olden time. That the town realized the solemnity of the occasion and was fully equal to the emergency is fully demonstrated. First, they chose one of the deacons to preside over the town meeting at which the important preliminaries were arranged, and then graciously admitted all the freeholders to the privilege of voting on the pending questions. The records portray the gravity of these proceedings.
Ye town Chose Mr. John Cushing to settle in ye ministry by a unanimous vote, also voted yt all ye freeholders Should vote in sum yt they Should Give to ye minister. Ye town voted to give Mr. John Cushing one Hundred thirty-three Pounds, six shillings and Eight Pence for settlement to be Payd in money and Labour.
It was eventually paid with great labor. After voting that the annual salary of Mr. Cushing should be sixty pounds
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and at the end of seven years it should be increased to sixty-six and two-thirds pounds, the town made choice of Samuel Wilder, Elisha Coolidge and Ephraim Stone to com- municate these propositions to Mr. Cushing. At a subse- quent meeting it was ordered "yt ye first wednesday of november next Should be ye ordination" (November 2, 1768). "Ye town voted to send to seven churches to ye ordi- nation." "Ye town voted to Give Capt. Wilder four Pounds to Provide for ye Counsel with this Proviso yt ye Capt Should Keep an exact acompt of ye Cost and if ye town shall think y' he hears too big a Proportion yt they will Consider him."
The town further stipulated that the salary should be paid annually and that one-fourth of the settlement should be paid in labor and directed that " Mr. Keperlinger and Mr. Ephraim Stone and William Joyner should be ye Committee to see yt ye work be done as Mr. Cushing wants it." The financial problems being solved, there was remaining an article "to Chuse men to Keep ye Doors and Seets of ve meeting-house till ye Church and Counsel have taken their Seets," and a committee was chosen to carry into effect this respectful impulse of the town. It is not a duty, however, to conceal the fact that a majority of the voters on this occasion were members of the church and consequently in this polite attention to the church and council they were tendering an acceptable compliment to themselves.
The gratuity granted Mr. Cushing as a settlement in addi- tion to his stated salary was in conformity with the enstoms of the time. It will be remembered that by the conditions of the original charter of this township, a right of land was bestowed on the first settled minister and another reserved for the use of the ministry. While Mr. Cushing continued to enjoy the use of one reservation the other had been given unconditionally to Mr. Winchester. The conditions were
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similar in other towns. The custom of granting settlements was designed to bestow on the successors the same degree of favor they had granted to the first settled minister. To pay the gratuity granted Mr. Cushing the town borrowed the greater part of Colonel Caleb Wilder of Lancaster and sub- sequently cancelled the debt by clearing land with labor which was accepted in payment of taxes.
It is impossible to determine what benefit Mr. Cushing received from the use of the ministerial lands. One lot was sold in 1794 and in consideration of his consent to the sale the town thereafter furnished him thirty cords of wood annually or paid an equivalent in money. It is worthy of note that during the long ministry of Mr. Cushing the annual salary proposed in 1768 was never changed. On one or more occasions an increase was ordered but the vote was reconsidered before another payment was made. At the close of the Revolution remuneration was made for the depreciated currency and later the payments were rendered in Federal money, but from the close of the first seven years to the end of his ministry the salary was neither lessened nor increased. The salary of Mr. Winchester was sixty pounds which was paid by the proprietors until the date of incorporation. The town assumed the original contract and continued to pay the same amount.
Scarcely had the town succeeded to the control of affairs before a storm came and beat upon the meeting-house. Contrary to either scriptural precedent it neither stood nor fell. The gale in the summer of 1766 moved the building from its foundation but the injury was repaired. Referring to this event, Dr. Cushing states. "that in the summer of 1766 a hurricane passed over this hill and made a wreck of the meeting-house, and moved it to the north and to the east two or three feet. It was thought at first that it could not
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be repaired but it was and stood until 1791;" or in the language of Tristram Cheney, "The house of public worship has lately been struck by a hurricane and the cost to repair cannot be less than £30." The following year and about three months before the death of Mr. Winchester, Samuel Fellows, Tristram Cheney and Elisha Coolidge were in- structed to brace up the galleries and to repair the roof. A corner of a leaf of the records is gone and an account of these repairs is partially lost, but Jeremiah Foster, Jr., was paid four shillings and eight pence " for peeling the bark for the meeting-house," which probably was used in repairing the roof. The next repairs were under a vote to lay the floor in the front gallery, build a pair of stairs in the southwest corner and mend the glass. This was followed by an order in 1771, "to give Jacob Harris, Daniel Priest, Peter Joslin, Samuel Joslin, Oliver Wilder, Francis Dickerson and John Oberlock, Jr., the room in the front gallery, behind the seats that are now built, to build a long pew on." At the same meeting a committee was appointed "to seat the meeting- house according to age and pay."
In 1772, the meeting-house was underpinned in a sub- stantial manner and to keep pace with the increase in popu- lation additional accommodations were arranged in the un- occupied portions of the galleries. At this time the glass was set in the remainder of the windows and the following year it was decreed that "eight persons that will be at the cost of finishing off the room behind the seats on the west side of the gallery may have it," and "likewise eight other persons may have the east side at the same rate."
Notwithstanding these repeated measures "to finish the meeting-house," it is probable that even in the estimation of our fathers it never was finished and that further work was delayed by the Revolution and later by the contemplation of
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a new and more commodious house. In the condition set forth in the records and confirmed by tradition the town con- tinued to occupy it and to compensate in some measure the decay of years until near the close of the century. Beneath its unpretentious roof Mr. Winchester was accustomed to meet his flock and here Mr. Cushing expounded the doctrines of his faith during the first twenty-three years of his pro- longed ministry. Before its humble altar two hundred or more were admitted to the church and over six hundred children were presented for the ordinance of baptism. It is supposed that none are now living who ever entered within its primitive walls. It humbly served its day and generation and the first meeting-house in Ashburnham will ever remain a conspicuous figure in the annals of the settlement. Actu- ated by this sentiment, the town, in 1882, erected an appro- priate tablet on the ground where it stood, both as a memorial of the past and as an index directing future generations to a locality around which the earliest and most sacred memories of the town will linger with unfailing delight. The cere- monies occurred July 4, and an appropriate address was delivered by Melvin O. Adams, Esq.
The inference is just and honorable to our fathers that a decision to remove the old house was not reached until the increasing wealth and population of the town demanded a more pretentious and commodious structure. How long or how earnestly the question of building a new meeting-house was debated, what arguments were presented on either side, with what reverence they regarded the old, or with what anticipations they contemplated a new house, cannot now be determined. The decision was not reached without serious conference and debate among individuals, but so far as the town is concerned, the decisive blow was struck without a note of warning or any bustle of preparation. A warrant
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for a town meeting issued October 16, 1789, contains the first reference to the subject. It was then proposed "to see it the town are willing to build a new Meeting House and to pass such votes as shall be necessary for that purpose, viz. : to agree upon a spot of land to set said House and to choose Committees that may appear to be necessary to carry on the work." The meeting was assembled October 30 and the record proceeds : " The question being put whether the Town are willing to build a new meeting-house and it passed in the affirmative. Also voted to set the new house as near the other meeting-house as may be and not to place it on the same ground. Also voted to choose a committee of seven persons to make a draft of a meeting-house and chose Mr. Caleb Kendall, Mr. Samuel Foster, Lient. Munroe, Samuel Wilder, Col. Lane, Mr. Joseph Whitmore and Lient. John Adams for said committee and then said meeting was adjourned to the 6th day of November next." This com- mittee is charged with grave responsibilities. To present a single plan that would be accepted by a majority of their townsmen is no ordinary undertaking.
While they are studying the models found in the older towns, we are left at liberty to notice the measure of respect shown them in prefixing titles to their names. With one exception all are honored with a title, and in the solitary omission Samuel Wilder modestly announces that he was the clerk who made the record. Formerly, the law of usage in regard to civic, military and ecclesiastical titles was inex- orable. Whenever an individual was advanced from the plane of mediocrity to the honors of a deacon, a justice or military command, his name was subsequently spoken and written in connection with the distinguishing title which announced the rank and new importance of the individual. Samuel Wilder was a captain and a deacon but he was never styled Captain Wilder after he had reached the honors of a
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deacon ; but when he was commissioned a justice of the peace, Esquire Wilder rose in triumph over his former self. The following scholinmis are apparent. In the former em- ployment of titles many nice discriminations were made. 1 deacon was next in honor and importance above a captain, while an esquire easily ranked both the deacon and the captain and even contested honors with the major and the colonel.
The town being assembled according to adjournment a matured plan was presented for the consideration of the town :
The Committee chosen the 30th of October last have made the following draft of a meeting-house viz : that said House be sixty feet in length and forty-five feet in width, twenty-six feet between joints with two porches and a cover over the front door ; with an elder's seat for people who are hard of hearing between the deacons seat and the pulpit ; 70 Pewes : 46 below and twenty-four above. The Pewes to be sold at Vendue to the highest bidder. Boards and Shingles and Clapboards to be got in the same way. The Committee propose to begin to fraim the house on the 20th of May in the year of our Lord 1791. The question was then asked whether the report should be accepted and it passed in the affirmative. It was then voted to choose nine men to be a com- mittee to direct the buildling of the new meeting-house. Also voted to set the new meeting-house back so far as the burying yard wall and that the east end of the house be placed six feet east of the west end of the old house.
The length of both meeting-houses extended from east to west. The new house was a short distance north of the old and extended westerly fifty-four feet beyond it. There is no record of the choice of the committee of nine ordered by the town, but incidental references to the progress of the work. under the direction of a building committee, render it certain that such a committee was chosen. And at a subse- quent meeting it was "voted to dismiss the old committee
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for building the meeting-house and chose Samuel Wilder, .Joshua Smith, Esq .. and Samuel Foster a committee to compleat the work."
THE SECOND MEETING-HOUSE IN ASHBURNHAM, ERECTED 1791.
The new committee vigorously forwarded the work. The frame was raised May 24 and the house was completed November 4, 1791. Three days later the town accepted the final report of the committee, and the new meeting-house was dedicated with appropriate ceremonies on the tenth of the same month. In anticipation of the completion of the house the pews were sold and the proceeds of the sale was applied to the cost of construction. The records afford very little information concerning the cost of the house. The town appropriated in all one hundred and sixty pounds, and added to this sum the amount received from the sale of the old house which was torn down in October. It is therefore apparent that the greater part of the cost of the new meeting- house was paid with money received from the sale of the pews.
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In 1808, the town paid Jacob Fairbanks for building four additional pews on the ground floor. These were sold at auction for the sum of three hundred and ninety-two dollars. The proceeds of this sale was the origin of the pew notes which became a bone of contention between the town and the parish.
To paint the new meeting-house in becoming color next demanded the attention and united wisdom of the town. Every citizen was privileged to vote and it was the concur- rent taste of the town that " the color should be a pea green." The meeting was assembled at a season of the year when the vernal sun first begins to warm the brown and russet fields which gayly respond with the springing blade and bursting leaf, and in warm sympathy with nature as she paints the earth in the fresh liveries of green, the town produces its first poem. For some reason there was a delay in carrying the vote into effect. At a meeting assembled March 2, 1798, having escaped an inspiration to copy the yellow of the harvest or the crimson and gold of the autumn, and behold- ing the earth covered with the snow and ice of winter, they consistently resolve to reconsider the former vote and to paint the meeting-house white.
The town continued in the faithful performance of the auxiliary offices of a parish until 1824. The causes which led to the dissolution of the long established relations between the town and the church are apparent. The system was not in harmony with the spirit of our Government. In the dual organization, the members of the church and those in full sympathy with them were a majority of the town, and by their controlling voice the minority were annually taxed under a continued protest. The spirit of tolerance some- times abated a resisted tax, but it presented no argument in support of the general principles involved. Indeed, the
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majority, conscious of the injustice of the system, secured its continuance many years by the exercise of a commend- able degree of tolerance to those who stoutly resisted, yet exensing the aet in a plea of the sacred use to which the money was devoted, they exacted tribute from all who only passively objected. Like every revolution of a system the beginning was remote from the end and early efforts produced no immediate effect. Manifestations of discontent and the responsive answers of a spirit of tolerance gradually led to the abatement of so considerable a part of the taxes assessed that the system was practically overthrown some years before the outward forms were abandoned. During the last year of this nominal connection, warrants for town meetings for the transaction of parochial business were addressed to all the inhabitants qualified to vote who are members of the Congregational society. The town clerk attended these meetings and recorded the proceedings in the town records. Under this amended system, the town only assessed those for the support of the parish whose consent was first obtained. This procedure virtually created a voluntary parish for which the town was only an agent and in such capacity continued to call meetings and to assess and collect the annual taxes. In principle it was an amendment on the former system, con- taining the germ which speedily developed in the organization of a permanent religious society.
Among the many votes of the town expressive of public sentiment on the subject of the preceding paragraph is an order adopted in 1781 that Jacob Willard, Jacob Kiblinger, John Kiblinger, Nathan Bigelow, Jacob Constantine, Joshua Holden, Elisha Coolidge, Ebenezer Conant, Jr., and Jonathan Taylor be excused from the payment of a minister tax for that year. In 1797 Colonel Francis Lane was exeused from the payment of the same tax. Immediately after the com-
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pletion of the second meeting-house, in response to the request of certain individuals, the town "Voted that the Baptist Society have leave to meet in the new meeting-bouse on week days for religious worship by applying to the door- keeper for the keys. Also when it shall so happen that the Church and Congregation usually meeting in said house are destitute of a preacher and do not want to use said house on the Sabbath that said Baptist Society shall have leave to meet in said house." Encouraged by this proceeding the town was requested "to abate the minister tax laid on the non-resident lands owned by the Baptists." Upon this proposition the town voted in the negative. The final paro- chial service of the town occurred in 1823 and 1824. The town assumed the expenses of the funeral of Rev. Dr. Cushing amounting to $65.45, and continued the salary until the following November. It also joined with the church in extending a call to Rev. George Perkins and directed the arrangements for his ordination. These offices at the eve of a dissolution of the relations between the town and the church were a fitting conclusion of a continued and honorable service. So far as the town was concerned, the only remaining topics of a kindred nature were the custody of the meeting-house and the control of the ministerial funds. The debate on these points between the town and the Congregational society can be presented more clearly after the other party to the controversy has been introduced.
The causes which suggested the organization of an inde- pendent parish consecutively follow those which led to the termination of the former relations. In the early history of the town nearly all the inhabitants were united in matters of religion and they adopted the readiest and most feasible method of sustaining publie worship. The removal into town of families of other denominations and the alienation
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of as many from the standing charch and particularly the rapid growth of the Methodist society, and the bolder inde- pendence of those who adhered to neither the Orthodox, Methodist, Baptist nor any other erecd, made it clearly apparent that every denomination should assume the control and management of its prudential affairs. The expediency of such an organization was seriously debated during the last years of the ministry of Dr. Cushing. Indeed, an association at that time was formed but " The Congregational Society or First Parish " did not have a legal existence until April 27, 1824, a short time after the settlement of Rev. George Perkins. At that date the society assumed the offices of a parish and has continued an efficient ally of the church with which it has been connected until the present time. The petition for a meeting of organization, dated April 8, 1824, was signed by Ivers Jewett, Oliver Marble, Charles Barrett, Elisha White, Fitch Crosby, Asa Woods, Grover Scollay, Joshua Townsend, Abraham Lowe, Joseph Rice and Dod- dridge Cushing. That eighty-one or more members were present at the first meeting is shown by a statement in the records that " the whole number of votes for a clerk of the parish was 81 and all for Charles Barrett." At the same meeting over which Timothy Stearns was called to preside, Joseph Jewett, Esq., Elias Lane and Walter Russell were selected for assessors. The duties of this office were more onerous than the term suggests. In addition to the assess- ment of taxes the assessors were expected to oversee all the prudential concerns of the society. At this meeting the sum of four hundred and fifty dollars was raised to pay the salary of the minister and by the following vote the unsettled questions with the town were introduced. "Voted that the assessors be a committee to look up the funds of the society laying in the hands of the selectmen."
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