USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Chelmsford > History of Chelmsford, Massachusetts > Part 81
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1908. Moderator: J. Adams Bartlett; Selectmen: Eben T. Adams, Charles F. Devine, John J. Dunn, Wilbur E. Lapham, David F. Small; Treasurer: Ervin W. Sweetser; Clerk: Edward J. Robbins; Representative: Edwin C. Perham, Chelmsford.
1909. Moderator: J. Adams Bartlett; Selectmen: Eben T. Adams, Charles F. Devine, John J. Dunn, Wilbur E. Lapham, David F. Small; Treasurer: Ervin W. Sweetser; Clerk: Edward J. Robbins; Representative: Elisha D. Stone, Ayer.
1910. Moderator: J. Adams Bartlett; Selectmen: Eben T. Adams, Charles F. Devine, John J. Dunn, Wilbur E. Lapham, David F. Small; Treasurer: Ervin W. Sweetser; Clerk: Edward J. Robbins; Representative: Elisha D. Stone, Ayer.
1911. Moderator: J. Adams Bartlett; Selectmen: Eben T. Adams, Charles F. Devine, John J. Dunn, Charles Lyons, D. Frank Small; Treasurer: Ervin W. Sweetser; Clerk: Edward J. Robbins; Representative: Edward Fisher, Westford.
1912. Moderator: J. Adams Bartlett; Selectmen: D. Frank Small, Walter B. Emerson, Charles Lyons; Treasurer: Ervin W. Sweetser; Clerk: Edward J. Robbins; Representative: Edward Fisher, Westford.
1913. Moderator: J. Adams Bartlett; Selectmen: D. Frank Small, Walter B. Emerson, A. Heady Park; Treasurer: Ervin W. Sweetser; Clerk: Edward J. Robbins; Representative: Samuel L. Taylor, Westford.
1914. Moderator: J. Adams Bartlett; Selectmen: D. Frank Small, A. Heady Park, Karl M. Perham; Treasurer: Ervin W. Sweetser; Clerk: Edward J. Robbins; Representative: Charles A. Kimball, Littleton.
1915. Moderator: J. Adams Bartlett; Selectmen: D. Frank Small, Karl M. Perham, A. Heady Park; Treasurer: Ervin W. Sweetser; Clerk: Edward J. Robbins; Representative: Edgar R. Hall, Acton. District No. 11, Acton, Ayer, Carlisle, Chelmsford, Littleton and Westford.
1916. Moderator: Walter Perham. Selectmen: D. Frank Small, Karl M. Perham, A. Heady Park; Treasurer: Ervin W. Sweetser; Clerk: Edward J. Robbins; Representative: Edgar R. Hall.
CHAPTER XIX. EARLY MINISTERS, PHYSICIANS AND LAWYERS.
THE REV. JOHN FISKE.
F OR an account of the Rev. John Fiske, see pp. 9, 15ff. and 65. He lived first at Cambridge, then Salem, and was ordained at Wenham, Oct. 8, 1644. His wife, Anne, died Feb. 14, 1671, (see page 18), and he married, Aug. 1, 1672, Elizabeth, widow of Edmund Hinchman. Of his children, John married Lidiah Fletcher, March 27, 1666, and died Aug. 29, 1687. Moses grad- uated at Harvard in 1662, and was ordained as Minister of Braintree.
Allen says: To the many trials and afflictions that had exercised Mr. Fiske, a new and unexperienced calamity was added by the death of his wife. Endeared by 43 years' experience of mutual care and toil, companions through a great sight of afflictions, and knit together by the strongest ties of vital piety, the separation was painful, and inflicted a deep wound in the heart of the survivor; though not above the power of religion to heal. She, by her incomparable expertness in the scriptures, had rendered any other concordance of the Bible in his library useless. Some years before her death she lost her sight. Under this disaster she exhibited a most exemplary patience by her view of the things which are not seen and are eternal. "After many admonitions to her friends to improve their sight well whilst they had it; on the 14th Feb., 1671, she had her eyes opened by their being closed, and was by death carried from faith to immediate and everlasting sight."
Divine Providence had just before removed Mr. Edmund Hinchman (died 1669), the countryman and tried friend of Mr. Fiske, who had followed him from England to America, and for many years had resided in Chelmsford, and Mr. Fiske, to cheer the remaining years of his earthly pilgrimage, took his widow, Elizabeth Hinchman for his companion in 1672. But this con- nection was short. The time approached that he must die.
"The stone and the gout, which at last were followed by convulsions,-brought his laborious life to an end."
Before his death he "after this manner blessed his four children, two sons and two daughters: You are as a shock of corn bound up, or as twins made beautiful by the covenant of grace. You have an interest in the sure mercies of David. These you have to live upon. Study to emulate one another but in the best- in the best. Provoke one another to love. The God of your fathers bless you all-"
770
HISTORY OF CHELMSFORD
Mather in his Magnalia begins his account of Fiske with a Greek quotation which, translated, means that a physician is of more worth than many ordinary men; and he closes with these words: "We will now leave him uttering the words of Weinrichius in his epitaph, Vixi et quem dederas cursum mihi Christe peregi, pertaesus vitae, suaviter opto mori."
I have lived and finished the work which thou, O Christ, didst give me: Weary of life, I long to depart in peace.
His descendants for four generations were eminent for their piety and virtue.
The following shows the connection of the Fiske with the Bridge and other families :
1Symond Fiske, lord of the Manor, Stradhaugh, died 1463, 2William, 3Simon, 4Simon, 5Robert, (born about 1525), "Jaffrey, "David, 8David, 'David, 10Ebenezer, 11Benjamin Fiske married Elizabeth Bridge, 12John Minot Fiske married Eliza M. Winn, 13Benj. Minot Fiske married Elizabeth A. Parkhurst, daughter of Rev. John who married Celia Burrows.
5William, brother to Jaffrey Fiske, "John, "Rev. John Fiske married Ann Gibbs; 2nd Elizabeth, widow of Edward Hinchman.
Elizabeth Bridge who married 11Benjamin Fiske, was the daughter of William, son of the Rev. Ebenezer Bridge. Her mother was Rachel, daughter of Capt. John Minott.
THE REV. THOMAS CLARKE.
1John Clarke of Cambridge as early as 1635, removed to Hartford. 2Nicholas of Cambridge also removed to Hartford. 3Jonas married 1st Sarah , buried Feb. 20, 1649; 2d Elizabeth Clark, July 30, 1650; she died March 21, 1672, 3rd, Elizabeth Cook, Aug. 19, 1673. The latter survived him and became the wife of Deacon Walter Hastings. He had seventeen children by his three wives, and died Jan. 14, 1699.
4Thomas, born March 2, 1652-3, was the son of his second wife.
The Rev. Thomas Clarke, M. A., says Sibley, was born March 2, 1652-3, probably on the southerly side of South street, near its junction with Holyoke street, in Cambridge. He was the son of the Ruling Elder Jonas Clarke of that place by his second wife, Elizabeth. He graduated at Harvard in 1670. He came to Chelmsford to assist Mr. Fiske in his work in 1675. When Mr. Fiske died, he became pastor and was probably ordained in March or April after the Articles of Agreement had been signed. (See pages 65-71.) His house having been built, he took posses- sion.
His first wife, Mary, was the mother of all his children, except the last two. She died Dec. 2, 1700, aged 53.
They were:
Lucy, born -; married Major William Tyng, Sept. 29, 1700; died April 25, 1708.
Elizabeth, born -; married the Rev. JohnHancock, Nov. 11, 1700. Jonas, born Dec. 2, 1684; (Court Record, Dec. 22d,) died April 28, 1770. Margaret, born Oct. 28, 1687.
Thomas, born Sept. 28, 1694.
Timothy, born April 29, 1702.
Abigail, born Jan. 28, 1705.
ELIZABETH CLARKE HANCOCK,
Grandmother of Governor John Hancock, signer of the Declaration of Independence.
She was the second daughter of the Rev. Thomas Clarke of Chelmsford (see page 770) whose wife, Mary, was the daughter of the Rev. Edward Bulkley of Concord whose death is recorded in Chelmsford. Shattuck in his History of Concord says that the Rev. Edward Bulkley died "probably" at the house of his grandson Edward Emerson; but it may have been at that of his daughter, Mrs. Thomas Clarke. The Rev. Thomas Clarke made a voyage to England, probably with the Hon. Peter Bulkley, in 1676, returning the next year.
Elizabeth Clarke married the Rev. John Hancock of Lexington ; and died Feb. 13, 1760. Their son John was born June 1, 1702. He married Mary -. Their son John became the first Governor of the State of Massachusetts.
This picture is taken from the portrait in oil which hangs in the Hancock-Clarke house in Lexington.
771
EARLY MINISTERS, PHYSICIANS AND LAWYERS
On page 70, reference is made to Mr. Clarke's part in settling the affairs of the Brattle Street church. Those associated with him in this matter were Lieut. Gov. Stoughton, Rev.Wm. Brattle of Cambridge and Mr. Danforth of Dorchester. What follows will explain the situation.
"As is usual in all cases of contest and separation, the Puritan Non-conformists, in leaving the Church of England, swung far to the other extreme, and in matters insignificant, as well as in those of moment, aimed to mark their separation by as wide a difference as possible. In the English Church service the Scriptures were largely read. Nearly all the Psalms were repeated once a month, and lessons from the Old and New Testament marked out for every Sunday in the year. The Puritans would have none of this. They discarded altogether the reading of the Scriptures in public worship. These Scriptures could be read by each individual at home, in such portions as his taste, judgment, or spiritual wants might dictate. In the English Church service, also, there were various, and, as they thought, unnecessarily multiplied prayers, together with the frequent repetition of the Lord's Prayer, and, interspersed with these, a large amount of singing and chanting. The Puritans disliked all this; they would have their mode of worship as distinct as possible. They would not use the Lord's Prayer at all in public worship, and to do so soon came in their judgment to savor of prelacy. They would have but one prayer and one singing ...... The sermon .. was the prominent point with the Puritans in the religious services of the Lord's day." [Hist. Brattle St. Ch. by the Pastor, Samuel Kirkland Lothrop.]
Quincy says that the Brattle Street church was the first-fruits of that religious liberty which the Charter of William and Mary introduced into Massachusetts. Its members differed as to modes of order and discipline from the "stricter sect," at the head of which were the Mathers. In these things the Brattle Street church made a new departure by reading the Scriptures and repeating the Lord's Prayer. Also they did not require any public relation of religious experience. They allowed women to vote with men in parish affairs, whether communicants or not, and they would baptize any child offered by any professed Christian engaging to see it educated in the Christian religion. This church was called the "Manifesto Church" on account of the statement regarding these things put forth in 1699. Mr. Clarke was one of those who smoothed matters out between Brattle Street and the other Congregational churches.
But the Brattle Street church did not accept the organ which Mr. Thomas Brattle, the rich merchant of Boston, wished to give them. In his will (1713) he says: "I give, dedicate and devote my organ to the praise and glory of God in ye sd Brattle Street church, if they shall accept thereof, and within a year of my decease procure a sober person that can play skilfully thereon
772
HISTORY OF CHELMSFORD
with a loud noise," etc .; and so it went, as provided in the will, to the Church of England. (King's Chapel.) It afterwards went to St. John's, Portsmouth, where it is at the present time. This is said to have been the first organ in America.
Of Mr. Clarke, Allen says: However commendable the attempt to snatch from oblivion a worthy character, and transmit to posterity the knowledge of those virtues, which once rendered their possessor the delight and ornament of his day, we dare not cherish the hope of being able to bring back from the long lapse of time the characteristic features of the subject of this memoir. We have neither church records, manuscript sermons, contemporary notices, nor any other materials, from which anything, but a bare momento can be erected, excepting the following notice in the 9th vol. of the Hist. Coll. of Mass. page 195: Dorchester, 1704, Dec. 10. The death of the Rev. Thomas Clark of Chelmsford was lamented in a Sermon from Acts 20-25 &c. "A great loss to all our towns, and especially to the frontier towns on that side of the country, who are greatly weakened with the loss of such a man."
He received the unanimous suffrage of the inhabitants of Chelmsford to become their minister. We might perhaps from this circumstance infer his acceptableness as a man and minister to this people.
He lived in a period distinguished by no remarkable changes in the political or pecuniary circumstances of the country. This with the consideration that his original salary was a more ample support than either his predecessor or successors have enjoyed, accounts for the singular fact, that he never requested but one favor of the Town during his ministry. This was a piece of land of about 10 acres, lying on Beaver brook.
None of his writings have been preserved. Almost the only monument of his past existence that has survived the ravages of time is his tombstone.
He died of a fever; was taken suddenly December 1st, after attending a funeral; died the 7th, and was buried the 11th, 1704, aged 52.
His place of residence was that now (1820) in the possession of Mrs. Grace Fletcher, widow of the late Oliver Fletcher, Esq. [Allen.]
The selectmen chose Capt. Thomas Hinchman, Ser. Josiah Richardson, and Mr. John Fiske with Mr. Thomas Clarke a committee to build the house for Mr. Clarke.
"25 the 4 mo. [June] 1678 the Selectt men att their meetting mad a ratte And dill [delivered] to the Constable Battes to gather in money for the payment of Corsers land for mr Clarke .. £66:17:5.
After his death, the Town voted "that Mistress Clarke shall have the remaining part of Mister Clarke's salary for the whole year," and in 1706 purchased a good cow to the value of £3 and presented it to Mistress Clarke.
773
EARLY MINISTERS, PHYSICIANS AND LAWYERS
Edward Emerson of Charlestown, administered the estate of Mr. Clarke, and sold to Col. Jonathan Tyng of Dunstable for £155 current money, the dwelling house, out housing and land, eighteen acres, bounded north by the highway; southeast by the land of Jacob Parker; southwest by the land of John Blanchard; northeast by Beaver brook; also twelve acres and other lots of land, March 15, 1705-6. [Note by H. S. P.]
Colonel Jonathan Tyng was the father of Major William, who married Mr. Clarke's daughter Lucy.
THE REV. SAMSON STODDARD.
1. Anthony Stoddard came from England and was a citizen of Boston in 1639, a linen-draper. Sewall calls him the "Antientist shop-keeper in town." One of his four wives was Mary Downing, sister of Sir George, afterwards Lord George Downing. Farmer says his first wife was a daughter of Emanual Downing. He was a member of the Artillery Company and served as Representative twenty-three years.
His son, Samson Stoddard, born Dec. 3, 1645, married Susanna 2. of Boston.
3. Their son, Samson, was born about 1681, at Boston. Died at Chelms- ford, Aug. 23, 1740. The other children were Anthony, Martha and Chris- tian. Samson was the youngest. . He graduated at Harvard in 1701, and married, 1st, Elizabeth Davis of Boston, Feb. 20, 1707; 2nd, on Feb, 2, 1726, Mrs. Margaret Harkerson or Halkerston of Boston. She died at Lancaster, March 27, 1789, aged 79, and was buried in Chelmsford.
June 26, 1706, he was called to be minister of the church in Chelmsford. In Town Meeting the vote was in concurrence with that of the church. He was to receive £100 settlement, and £70 a year. He was ordained July 25, 1706. The Town agreed to give him £4 a year for wood, valued at 2s. 2}d. a cord.
In 1715, his salary was raised to £90. Three years later, to £100, on account of the depreciation of currency. In 1735, it was £137.
The author of the "Stoddard Family" says: In 1738 his health failed, and the parish voted to continue his salary and supply the pulpit beside. During this period of ill health, he was greatly dejected in spirits. His last public discourse was from the text I Cor. ix, 27, and in this, as in some before, he discovered to his people that his mind as well as his body was diseased. Allen says: His health was naturally delicate, and his habits sedentary. His constitutional temperament strongly inclined him to a recluse life, and a depression of spirit. But the imperious calls of parochial duty and ministerial intercourse corrected in some degree the infelicities of nature and habit, and suppressed a while the rising tide that at last overwhelmed him.
A necessary expenditure in his family, which his resources could not meet, the mortification and perplexity of teaching the Town school in 1736 and 7, added to his constitutional infirmities a weight which overcame his fortitude and impaired his health. He became unable for the most part during the last three years of his life to discharge the duties of his sacred office * * *
774
HISTORY OF CHELMSFORD
He fell a prey to his corporeal and mental disorders, Aug. 23, 1740, in the 34th year of his ministry and about the 60th of his age.
He was found dead in his well, over which was built later the railroad station at the Centre Village.
He was a plain, practical preacher, and a faithful and able minister of the New Testament. From some remnants of his manuscript sermons furnished to Allen by Farmer, the former judged that they were constructed after the models of the old divines of the sixteenth century, but executed in a happier manner. June 1, 1713, he preached the Artillery Election sermon in Boston from I Sam, ii, 30. Judge Sewall says it was an excellent discourse. He gave a silver tankard to the church. October 23, 1740, the Town voted to pay Mrs. Stoddard £132 for her husband's funeral expenses.
He had nine children:
4. Samson, born May 1, 1709.
Elizabeth, born Dec. 14, 1710; married Capt. Waterhouse of Boston, Oct. 20, 1741; died Aug. 1775. He died, 1751.
William, born May 4, 1712; married Mercy Wise, Jan. 18, 1745; died 1742.
Benjamin, born Dec. 28, 1713.
Rebecca, born Nov. 4, 1716; married William White, merchant of Boston. Sarah, born Sept. 21, 1718; married Rev. Ebenezer Bridge, Oct. 24, 1741; died April 9, 1783.
John, born Nov. , 1721; and died young.
Mary, born June 19, 1723; died at Westfield, April 3, 1759; buried at Chelmsford.
Margaret, born - -, 1725; married Rev. Samuel Hopkins of Hadley, Mass., Sept. 14, 1776.
4. (Colonel) Samson, born May 1, 1709, died 1777; buried, April 28; (see page 203); graduated Harvard 1730; studied Divinity, but concluded to turn his attention to trade and agriculture. He married Elizabeth Maverick, Sept. 22, 1738. In 1741, he married - -, name unknown, and had
5. Samson, born April 3, 1743; graduated Harvard 1763; died 1779; buried March 26. He was schoolmaster and Justice of the Peace in Chelmsford, and Major of the Militia. He was associated with his father in managing the estate in New Hampshire.
Also one daughter.
Col. Samson married, 2nd, Oct. 18, 1744, Margaret Vryling, and had:
Vryling, born Dec. 17, 1746; died 1779; buried May 8. Graduated at Harvard in 1765, and taught school in Chelmsford; died suddenly.
Sarah, born Oct. 27, 1752; died Aug. 3, 1818; married Aug. 26, 1779, Levi Wilder of Lancaster.
Margaret Vryling was the daughter of a distinguished merchant (named Van Vryling) of Amsterdam, Holland, where her parents were under the ministry of the Rev. John Robinson, the Puritan. The mother was, in early life, at boarding school at Dort, and there embraced the tenets of the Pilgrim Fathers. Her husband held like views. After his death she came with her two daughters to Boston, in 1715. There Margaret married Mr. Stoddard. He kept a store for many years in Chelmsford, and is said to have owned 80,000 acres of land in New Hampshire, where a township was named for him. He received his com-
775
EARLY MINISTERS, PHYSICIANS AND LAWYERS
mission as Lt. Colonel Sept. 12, 1749. He was Colonel of the 2d Regiment of Middlesex County, and Representative in the General Court.
Allen says (page 132) that Col. Stoddard "studied divinity and began to preach, but for some reason * *
* he turned his attention to trade and agriculture. He opened a store of English and West India goods and traded largely in Chelmsford for many years." He took an honorable part in the affairs of Church and Town for a long period, and was a man of pure morals. "At the commencement of the Revolutionary war, he was suspected of indifference to the cause of the Revolution, or of favoring its enemies. He, therefore, fell under the displeasure of the people, who, according to the spirit of the times, treated him with some indignity, from which he never fully recovered. Whether he really did favor the cause of Great Britain or not, seems not to be clearly ascertained. But his best friends centured him for withholding a full exposition of his sentiments."
In 1708, the estate of the first minister of Chelmsford, John Fiske, was sold by the children of his brother, Moses, to Samson Stoddard for £130. His children sold to Ebenezer Bridge, the fourth pastor, who married Mr. Stoddard's daughter, Sarah.
John Fiske, Jonas Clarke, Samson Stoddard, and Ebenezer Bridge, were, in their respective families, the eldest sons of the first four pastors of Chelmsford, and of each of them nearly the same thing may be said. They each grew to manhood and resided in Chelmsford, educated, intelligent and useful men. They held nearly the same offices in the Town, and for about 120 years the oldest son of a minister was a leading citizen. The last three were Justices of the Peace, members of the Legislature, and Commanders of Regiments. "Because they were worthy, their fellow-citizens gladly gave them honor." [See Stoddard Genealogy, and Allen, page 140.]
This marriage is found in the Boston records: Sampson Stoddard, Jr., Esq., and Jemima White were married in Boston, Sept. 20, 1772, by Rev. Mather Byles, D. D.
THE REV. EBENEZER BRIDGE.
Allen says: "The period, at which the subject of this biograph- ical sketch lived, was the most difficult and trying for clergymen, of any half century since the settlement of this country.
"Mr. Bridge was born in Boston, 1714. He was educated at Harvard University, Cambridge, whence he procured A. B., 1736, at the age of 17 years. He spent the next year after he left the university, at Plymouth, in instructing the grammar school, where he was much respected and beloved by his pupils. [See memoir of Schoolmasters, in Plymouth His. Col., vol. 4."]
Allen is mistaken in the date of Mr. Bridge's birth, as will be seen from the following items, collected from the records of
776
HISTORY OF CHELMSFORD
Boston and of the New Brick Church. Allen also gives what are probably the baptismal dates as the birth dates of Mr. Bridge's children. The latter dates have been substituted for the former in Allen's account here quoted.
Ebenezer Bridge and Mary Roberts of Boston were married by the Rev. Cotton Mather, May 11, 1710.
The children of Ebenezer and Mary Bridge were:
Mary,
born
March 15, 1711; baptized March 18, 1711.
Hannah,
June
11, 1713;
June
14, 1713.
*(Rev.) Ebenezer, “
March
4, 1716;
March 11, 1716.
Sarah,
66
March 20, 1718;
March 23, 1718.
Experience,
=
July
21, 1723;
July
21, 1723.
Samuel,
66
August 10, 1726;
August 14, 1726.
Abigail,
May
7, 1731;
16
May
9, 1731.
Elizabeth,
16
April
2, 1732;
April
9, 1732.
Persis,
March 18, 1733;
March 18, 1733.
Samuel,
June
19, 1734;
June
23, 1734.
William,
=
Jan.
13, 1736;
Jan.
18, 1736.
Benjamin,
Sept.
9, 1737;
Sept.
11, 1737.
Jerusha,
Jan.
8, 1743;
Jan. 9, 1743.
In 1715, Ebenezer Bridge was apparently following the black- smith's trade; and on July 24, 1729 permission was given by the Town of Boston "To Ebenezer Bridge of Boston Blacksmith to Erect a Timber building for a Dwelling house upon his peice of Land at the North part of Boston near Beer lane so called sd Building to be about Thirty six feet long Eighteen or Nineteen feet broad and Eighteen feet Stud." [Boston Records, Vol. 29, p. 225.]
Ebenezer Bridge was one of the twenty-four who first associated for the building of the New Brick Church in Boston.
Ebenezer Bridge and Mary Maccarty were married March 19, 1729. [Boston Marriages, p. 148.]
The writer could find no record in Boston of the death of Mary Roberts, the wife of Ebenezer Bridge. The deaths at that period were not carefully recorded. It may be that she was the mother of only the first seven of his fourteen children.
Mary married Ephriam Baker, Sept. 3, 1730. Hannah mar- ried Andrew Symmes, Aug. 31, 1732. Sarah married Jonathan Mountfort, Jr., Nov. 25, 1742. Elizabeth married Increase Blake, Nov. 18, 1762. [For mention of Symmes and Blake see pp. 223, 224, 237.]
The following documents, relating to the settlement of the estate of the father of the Rev. Ebenezer Bridge, are of sufficient interest to be included in this account. They are among the Fiske papers.
We the Subscribers, being children and heirs of Capt. Ebr. Bridge late of Boston, deceasd-, do hereby Signify to, & Inform *It is recorded that Ebenezer Bridge was admitted a member of the New Brick Church, Feb. 25, 1738-9.
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