History of Barnstable County, Massachusetts, 1620-1890, Part 21

Author: Deyo, Simeon L., ed
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: New York : Blake
Number of Pages: 1292

USA > Massachusetts > Barnstable County > History of Barnstable County, Massachusetts, 1620-1890 > Part 21

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).

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from memory, that the preparative meeting at Yarmouth was estab- lished about the time when the present meeting house was built, in 1809. Another, of venerable age, Ezra Kelley of New Bedford, who attended meeting in the old house, believes it was not established till some years after.

In 1710 it was proposed that Sandwich monthly meeting hold a monthly meeting at Yarmouth and one at Falmouth; which was al- lowed for Falmouth, but naught appears as regards Yarmouth.

The meeting house in Dennis was probably built about the year 1714, as the date is estimated by so careful an authority as Newell Hoxie. Mention of the house, however. does not appear in the month- ly meeting minutes, until 1720.

In 1717 John Wing was appointed to inform Yarmouth Friends that if they did not attend monthly meeting better, they would be turned over to the quarterly meeting. They promised to do better. For the past fifty years, at least, no such complaint, considering their numbers, could be made of Yarmouth members; some of whom have been among the most steadfast in keeping up the attendance of the monthly meetings. And they have made the attendance at Yarmouth, whenever the monthly meeting is held there, so very attractive by their hospitality as to need no committee to enforce attendance from Sandwich and Falmouth. Yet no longer do the wild deer of the Wa- quoit woods, the forest of the Mashpee Indians, the sober villages of Cotuit, Centreville, Marston's Mills, Hyannis, and South Sea, view the quaint procession of Quaker carriages wending their way of thirty miles through the sands of summer or the snows of winter, between Falmouth and Bass river, to attend the monthly meetings. No longer does Cotuit behold them halting at Hinckley's or Heman Crocker's, as a half-way house, for a dinner and a " nooning"; or returning the day after the meeting in the same deliberate style, satisfied with the social privileges of Quakerism, and stronger for the next month's battle of life. The railroad has undone all this, and robbed these monthly meeting excursions of time for that social commingling of neighbor- hood with neighborhood, which, in the days when they carried their boys and girls to monthly meetings, helped to hold the rising genera- tion to the Society.

The old meeting house in Dennis had stood for about fifty years, when in 1765 Yarmouth Friends request liberty to repair it, or rebuild. Permission was granted, and John Kelley and Hattil Kelley were ap- pointed to attend to it. Timber was bought to repair it, and Falmouth and Sandwich contribute money for the cost. It was found that to repair the house where it stood would make a difficulty. Committees come and go, until in 1768 some one, probably the contractor, fails, the monthly meeting gives him the lumber, and that ends the project.

- اسهايج

FRIENDS' MEETING "HOUSE."

RFMG

THE LATE RESIDENCE OF DAVID K. AKIN,

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THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS.

Nineteen years after, however, the meeting house was repaired. A writer is quoted by Freeman, who says of this building, that there was in 1795 in Dennis " a small Friends', or Quaker, meeting house, situ- ated on the east side of Follen's pond ; at this five families belonging to the town attended, with others from Yarmouth and Harwich."

In 1807 liberty was given to move the Dennis meeting house over to the west side of the river, near Seth Kelley's, in South Yarmouth. In 1SOS, 6th mo., David Kelley gave half an acre for a lot of ground for the new meeting house, which it had been decided to build. In 12th mo. it had cost $864. Yarmouth paid one half, Sandwich and Falmouth gave $161, and the quarterly meeting $271. Accordingly Friends' meetings began in the new house early in 1809; and next year the old Dennis meeting house " was sold to Lot Sears, torn down, put on a raft, floated down the river to a place about a mile below where the Friend's village then was, and was built up into a dwelling- house" which may yet be standing. The money received from the sale of the old house was laid out in painting and shutters for the new house. The old Friends' burial lot at Dennis is now surrounded by woods and overgrown with shrubbery. There was formerly a post- and-rail fence surrounding it, which having gone to decay, Ezra Kel- ley has had a neat board fence put up, and the graves of four of his ancestors marked by simple white stones.

In 2d mo., 1810, Yarmouth Friends request a mid-week meeting ; and the next year they ask to hold a preparative meeting, and to have two sittings of the monthly meeting each year in their house. They continue thus to be held.

In 1815 Yarmouth Friends, by consent of the monthly meeting, commenced holding two meetings for worship on First-day of the week. At length the two meetings a day were confined to the sum- mer season. But for the past fifteen years, nearly, there has been but one Friends' meeting on the First-day of the week, besides the regular mid-week meeting on Fifth-day.

Prior to 1819 we are at a loss to know who of the members of the Yarmouth meeting were ministers ; except one Joshua Weekson, who in 1731 is mentioned as a " public Friend." "Our meetings in the old house," says Ezra Kelley, "and for some years in the new, were usually silent, except when visited by ministering Friends from away. We did occasionally hear a few words from Abby Crowell (formerly Kel- ley) but had no approved ministry before Russell Davis." About 1819 Russell Davis moved from New Bedford to South Yarmouth, having a remarkable gift in the ministry of discerning and addressing the states of individuals and meetings. With but little human learning, and regarded as inferior in manner and appearance, he was often ena- bled, both in public and in private, to reveal to individuals their

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thoughts and spiritual conditions, to their own astonishment. He became known as a true seer : and such was the general confidence in his declarations as being from the true source of authorized ministry, that the attendance of the South Yarmouth meeting grew in his day to its greatest number. He died in 1847. aged seventy-five years. The subsequent acknowledged ministers have been : Jacob H. Vining, whose residence here was contemporary with the oil-carpet manufac- tory which he conducted ; Ruth H. Baker, acknowledged in 1843; and Elizabeth Stetson, 1889.

The religious concern represented by the meeting house near Georgetown, a short distance northward from the Friends' meeting house, is attributed to Friends, though having no official connection with the Society. In 1868 her Christian interest in the welfare of fami- lies of fishermen and others led Rose Kelley, the beloved daughter (now deceased) of David Kelley. with Rebeeca Wood (now Howes) to read the Bible to them in their homes, and at times to gather as many children as would assemble for instruction in the contents of the Scriptures. The attendance soon outgrew the capacity of any of the Georgetown houses, and encouraged David Kelley, in 1873, to build a plain, commodious building for the good of all who would assemble there rather than in one of the denominational houses for worship. One and another non-clerical laborer has been raised up to work in this mission, and a decided change for good has been wrought in many lives, and in the neighborhood. At the close of Friends' meet- ings, visiting ministers often repair to this house, as if in continuation of their service. The beloved elder still lives to acknowledge, in view of remarkable results which have followed. the reward of peace with which the erection of his building has been blessed.

There would be no easy stopping place were we to begin giving credit to the estimable lives of men and women among the South Yar- mouth worthies. The memory of these just. though blessed in the scale of virtue, has only its invisible record. As to public note, the name which stands in the writer's memory as most conspicuous in the affairs of Yarmouth Friends forty years ago is that of Zeno Kelley. His most widely known successor in public prominence and esteem was the late David K. Akin, a sketch of whose life has been furnished by other hands as follows :

DAVID K. AKIN .- This valued citizen was born 1st mo. 5, 1799, and departed this life 8th mo., 23, 1887, at his homestead in South Yar- mouth. Of his ancestry it is only known that a widowed lady named Akins came from Scotland to Dartmouth early in the last century, and from her two sons the name descended. Other branches of the name exist at Dartmouth and New Bedford, but Abiel, son of Thomas, was the first known in Yarmouth. Abiel Akin was born at Dartmouth and

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came to South Yarmouth, where he married Catherine Kelley, 6th mo., 12, 1794. She was the sister of Zeno and Seth Kelley, the latter being the father of the present David Kelley. The children of the marriage were: Rebecca, Thomas, David K., Joseph, Seth K., Phœbe, and Catherine. The mother died, and Abiel for his second wife mar- ried Mary Wing of Sandwich.

David K. Akin, the third child, was married 6th mo. 23, 1824, to Rachel W. Peckham of Westport, Mass., who died 6th mo., 17, 1848, leaving her surviving, a husband and two children,-Hannah P., who married David Kelley and died 2d mo., 21, 1872, without issue; and Peleg P. Akin. This son is the only surviving male representative of this branch of the Akin family, also of his mother's family. He was born 6th mo., 30, 1832, and married Mary A. Leonard, who died with- out issue. He married 1st mo., 7. 1866, Rebecca B. Howes, and their only child, Mary L. Akin, resides with them.

David K. Akin learned clock-making and commenced for himself in this trade at South Yarmouth in his early married life. When the manufacture of salt became a leading industry he erected works which, although in decay, are now owned by his only son. He was an early merchant of South Yarmouth and with his brother, Thomas, conducted a store many years under the firm name of David K. Akin & Co. For years he was secretary of the first Marine Insurance Com- pany of the town, and a director of the Barnstable County Fire Insur- ance Company, in which he succeeded Amos Otis in the presidency. He was director in the affairs of the Yarmouth National Bank, being elected to his fiftieth term the year he died, and was its president from 1871 to 1879. He was also one of the prime movers in the organiza- tion of the Bass River Savings Bank, of which he was a trustee. Other responsible positions he satisfactorily filled in his active life; but those civil relations which would absorb too much of his time, he de- clined. His generous nature induced him to serve a term as overseer of the poor, and he once served as a county commissioner with his re- publican contemporaries, Seth Crowell and John Doane.

He adhered to the faith of the Friends, and was a leading member and an elder, aiding greatly in its material and spiritual mainten- ance. He was a valued counsellor of the Representative Meeting of the Friends of New England, and for twelve years (1849-61) served as the clerk of the Sandwich monthly meeting. For his second wife he married, 10th mo., 5, 1849, Betsey Crowell, who died 1st mo., 18, 1881. To his social relations he was strongly attached. To his purity of life in all its phases his associates attest. He was liberal in his views, sympathetic and kind, and among the first in every good enterprise. He possessed physical strength, energy of character, and great moral courage; all of which, united with his generous nature and conscien-

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tious consideration for the rights of others, rounds into a column purer and more lasting than marble.

THE SOCIETY IN FALMOUTH .- In our general survey, we have seen that Sandwich was the first town in America where a society of that people was established, and that this took place in 1657, only ten years after the rise of the Society in England.

Turning our eyes now three years later southward to the Succo- nesset shore, we are struck with the view that Quakerism appears an occasion of the first settlement of Falmouth#; and that, too, in the per- son of no less a character than Isaac Robinson himself, the son of that distinguished pastor of the Pilgrim fathers, John Robinson, whom on embarking in the Mayflower they left in charge of the church at Ley- den. The Pastor Robinson having died in 1625, Isaac, his son, came over in 1631. In 1639 he removed from Scituate to Barnstable. For twenty years he was a highly respected citizen there, being deemed "an excellent and sensible man "; and was some time in the service of the government. In the year 1659, as we are informed in Cogs- well's historical sketch in the Barnstable County Atlas, "the General Court of Plymouth by special order permitted Robinson and three others to frequent the Quaker meetings 'to endeavor to seduce them from the error of their ways.' But the reverse effect followed. Rob- inson became a sympathizer with the Quakers, and June 6, 1660, a year less one day, he was pronounced a manifest opposer of the laws." In the statement of another we read: "Instead of convincing the Quakers he became self-convicted, embraced many of their doctrines, and consequently rendered himself so obnoxious that he was dis- missed from civil employment and exposed to much censure and some indignity."

This was enough to make Isaac Robinson, now ostracised as a Quaker, feel no longer at home in Barnstable, and incline to seek a new residence. Thirteen other men with their families, and proba- bly having religious toleration as their bond of sympathy, accompany him in boats on Vineyard sound, and sail westward, till they find at Succonesset satisfactory land and a fresh pond, which determine them to settle there. The first house built in the town was Isaac Robin-

*The opinion of Charles W. Jenkins, in his lectures on the history of Falmouth, is confirmatory of this view. He says: " One of the first and leading settlers was Isaac Robinson; and what were the lessons he had learned from his Puritan father ? They were the following: ' Follow no man any farther than he follows the Lord Jesus Christ.' ' I am confident God has yet much truth to break forth from His holy word; and fol- low the truth whenever and by whomsoever taught.' These lessons of the pious, catholic, and learned Robinson were not lost on the son; and when persecution in the New World lifted its arm, he was the first who dared openly to avert the blow. For this he sacrificad the favors of the government, and it was this that led him and his as- sociates, who probably sympathized with him, to commence a new settlement at this place."

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son's. He lived in continued good esteem to the venerable age of ninety-three; but appears, after keeping "an ordinary at Saconesset for the entertainment of strangers" to have moved before the year 1673 to Martha's Vineyard (where it had been his intention to sail when he left Barnstable), and to be residing there in 1701. He was proprietors' clerk at Tisbury in 1673, and 1678-84 was selectman.

It is not known how soon actual members of the Society followed their forerunner, Isaac Robinson, into Succonesset, or Falmouth. But the prominence and undenied influence possessed in his new colony by their former champion, doubtless early turned the eyes of some Friends to Succonesset as a safe abiding place for themselves also. In his lectures on early Falmouth history, Charles W. Jenkins thinks it probable that the "first founders of the Society of Friends in this town arrived about six years after the first settlers, and that William Gifford and Robert Harper were of this number, and that their meet- ing at West Falmouth was established about 1685. Probably Isaac Robinson, jr., a son of the first settler, joined this meeting,-he set- tled at West Falmouth,-and Isaac Robinson is one of the first names to be found on the records of that Society."

This Robert Harper, who afterward, in 1685, took up lands in the eastern part of the township, had been a prominent sufferer in Sand- wich from the first rise of the Society there. In 1659 he was sentenced in Boston to fifteen stripes, also suffered imprisonment there; and his fines in Sandwich (for not swearing, etc.) are recorded# as amounting to 644; namely, " all the cattle he had, his house and land "; leaving him and his family " one cow, which was so poor that she was ready to dye." Robert Harper was one of the four Friends, who, when Wil- liam Leddra, the last of the four Friends thus executed, was hanged on Boston common, and his body was cut down, as says the chroni- cler,+ "attended the fall of it; and heaving catch'd it in their Arms laid it on the Ground, until your Murtherer had stripped it of the cloaths; who, when he had so done, confesst he was a comely Man."

Freeman says that in 1668 William Gifford, Thomas Lewis and John Jenkins became inhabitants of Succonesset. William Gifford's fines in Sandwich, in 1658 and '59, had been fifteen head of Cattle, " half a Horse " and " half a Swine "-all amounting to £57,19s. "For no other cause," as says George Bishop, "but for Meeting with the People of the Lord; and for that in Conscience to the Command of Christ, he could not Swear."

In the oldest existing book of minutes of Friends' monthly meeting held at Sandwich, the earliest entry being for 25th of 4th mo, 1672, we find Robert Harper (then of Succonesset) among the first to be em-

*New Eng. Judged, p. 185.

+Id., p. 331.

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HISTORY OF BARNSTABLE COUNTY.

ployed on committees for services requiring tact and good judgment. Two months later, William Gifford is one of two named to speak to Thomas Johnson, also of Succonesset. " to know how it is with him in respect of his outward condition." And the care of the meeting month after month for the guardianship and relief of Thom s Johnson's fam- ily, makes interesting reading. Before leaving Sandwich to take up land in Succonesset he had had his house and land seized by the marshal for fines.

The following has been preserved as the record of a monthly meet- ing held at Falmouth the 2d day of 11th mo .. 1673: "Friends having met together in the fear of the Lord, found all things well and in or- der, and.so departed in love, giving God the glory, who is blessed for- ever."

In 1678 lands were laid out at Oyster pond: also at Hog island and Great Sipperwisset "where the early settlers were William Gifford, Senior; William Gifford, Jr .; John Weeks, and William Weeks." This is the first recorded beginning of the settlement at West Falmouth, and Quaker names head the list,-William Gifford, sr., having become an inhabitant of Succonesset ten years before. He was evidently a prominent character, and employed in useful services in town as well as in Society affairs.

In 1681, 2d month, the monthly meeting at Sandwich ordered that a meeting (probably a session of the monthly meeting) be held "at Joseph Hull's at Suckonessett, the last 6th day in 3d mo. next." Like Robert Harper, Joseph Hull afterward took up lands in the eastern part of the township. This Joseph Hull is traced, in notes left by Newell Hoxie, as a son of Joseph Hull who came from Weymouth to Barnstable in 1639, and in 1641 went to Yarmouth to preach without approbation of his brethren, and was excommunicated. Afterward he made satisfaction and was restored. "His son Joseph moved to Falmouth and bought of Zach. Perkins the estate which Zach. bought of William Weeks, sen., for £105 in 1678. His uncle, Tristum Hull, who moved to Newport, was father to John, captain of the first packet to England, and from him came Commodore Hull." Tristum Hull was blamed by the Plymouth authorities for bringing the persecuted Nicholas Upshal to Sandwich, and was ordered to " carry him out of the government." It appears that Newport became the home of both.

In 1682 a meeting,-probably another transferred sitting of the monthly meeting,-was ordered to be held at William Gifford's at Sip- perwisset (West Falmouth) the 20th of the month and 6th day of the week. In 1683 Robert Harper informed that Friends at Succonesset desired that Friends might have meetings among them. And in the 8th month a meeting was appointed to be held at Succonesset the

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16th of this month, 3d day of the week. Of such occasional monthly meetings held at Falmouth, and sometimes at Yarmouth, there is no record of the business.

In 1685, by a minute of the monthly meeting, " Friends of Sucko- nessett were encouraged to meet together." This may be regarded as the date of the official establishment of the Friends' meeting in West Falmouth; though no doubt, according to their principles, they had been regularly holding meetings for worship from the time when but " two or three " began to reside here. Before moving from Sandwich to Falmouth, Cudworth says of them: "They meet ordinarily twice in a week besides the Lord's day." Since worship in spirit and in truth cannot, in the Friends' view, be treated as if dependent on the serv- ices of a minister, or hearing of words, their meetings for that pur- pose must have been the earliest regularly held in the township. Though the town voted land in 1687 for the support of any who might be found fit to " teach the good word of God " in Falmouth, it was not until 1701 that Samuel Shiverick was settled . upon as the town min- ister.

The relations between these first two churches which grew up side by side in Falmouth-the Congregationalist and the Friends'-seem to have been amicable or mutually tolerant, from the first. The leading pioneer or first settler of the town, Isaac Robinson, seems to have been a representative of both societies in his own person .* The thirteen families who joined him in the Falmouth colony were no doubt in sympathy with his spirit. Though all were Congregationalists, so as early to identify that church with the town government, they started the town on its general course of giving fair play to the Quaker refu- gees from the rigors of the Plymouth rule. There are traditions that Friends were made to suffer even here by orders from Plymouth,- for instance that Daniel Butler "was tied to a cart and whipped through the town." But leaving tradition for history, the records of the town contain an application from the " persecuted Quaker Daniel Butler " to the town, to be released from liabilities to the minister on account of his being a Friend. The request was granted, thus show- ing, as Jenkins observes, "that if Butler was persecuted it was not the result of town action." "There are many instances recorded," says the same author, "where individuals made it to appear that they had conscientious scruples on this subject [of paid ministry] and their tax was promptly remitted. It is to be hoped that our worthy

* " Our habit of toleration began with Isaac Robinson in 1660, who with his father,

the Leyden minister was taught ' to follow truth whenever and by whomsoever taught.' Intercourse with the Quakers had undoubtedly mnuch to do with the liberal and tolerant ways of the community. This liberality and humane disposition is seen in the just treatment of Indians, with whom Falmouth was always on the kindest terms."-John L. Swift (Falmouth Bi-centennial Oration).

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neighbors of this sect, when thinking of the cruel persecutions of the Quakers, will not forget these acts of liberality on the part of the good people of this town."

In 1688 lands in Falmouth were laid out to Thomas Bowerman. In 1705 a Thomas Bowman (whether the same Friend or not, it is not clear) appears on the monthly meeting record as being in prison for priest's rate, and Friends send him a bed and bedding. As Friends could not contribute to a paid ministry in the form of taxes or other- wise, neither could they vote with their fellow-townsmen for the sup- porting of a stated minister. In 1731, the following voters, being members of the Society of Friends, dissented from a call to Samuel Paliner to serve as the town's minister with a stated support : Stephen Harper, Benjamin Swift, Richard Landers, Samuel Bowerman, Thomas Bowerman, jr., Amos Landers. Justus Gifford, John Landers, Thomas Bowerman, William Gifford, sr., William Gifford, Seth Gifford. and William Gifford, younger. But the record states that "in November the town voted £170 for Mr. Palmer's settlement and salary-to clear the Quakers."

In 1703 Falmouth Friends are so remiss in attending the monthly meeting that it appoints a committee to look after them ;- likewise Yarmouth.

In 1709 the monthly meeting held at Sandwich conferred the powers of a meeting for discipline, or preparative meeting, upon that held in Falmouth ; and the next year a monthly meeting for Falmouth was proposed. Sometimes when no business appeared in the Falmouth preparative meeting to report up to the monthly meeting, it is stated that " Friends sent their love."

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History of Barnstable County, Massachusetts, 1620-1890, Part 21

Author: Deyo, Simeon L., ed Publication date: 1890 Publisher: New York : Blake Number of Pages: 1292

Author: Deyo, Simeon L., ed
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: New York : Blake
Number of Pages: 1292