History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 193

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton), ed. n 85042884-1
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: Philadelphia : J. W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1538

USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I > Part 193

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In 1807 (March 27), Captain George Raymond, de- ceased, at the advanced age of ninety-nine years, having been born December 21, 1707. This aged citizen, whose life embraced the greater part of the eighteenth century, was influential in town affairs, and at one time in military, having taken part in the Cape Breton expedition. From generation to genera- tion, and from century to century, as in the Herrick and Raymond families, the military prestige has been kept alive.

Another eminent citizen, who died in 1809, was Josiah Batchelder, Jr., whose father served in the Port Royal expedition of 1707. His early years were passed at sea, and in 1761 he had the misfortune, while in command of a vessel, to be captured by a French privateer. He succeeded in having the ves- sel released, but was detained for its ransom for some time, in a prison at Martinique. His name appears frequently in the Revolutionary correspondence, and he was actively engaged in privateering ; he was several times elected a member of the Provincial Congress, and during his declining years was sur- veyor and inspector of the port of Salem and Bev- erly.

William Burley, born January 2, 1751, died Decem- ber 22, 1822. Was a native of Ipswich, but gave freely of his wealth to the poor of this town, leaving legacies to Beverly and Ipswich to promote the in- struction of poor children. He not only aided the American cause, with advice, but took an active part, enlisting as a soldier, and while a lieutenant, under Colonel Thompson, in February, 1780, was taken pri- soner near White Plains, remaining in captivity a year and nine months. His son, Edward Burley, is living in Beverly, at the age (1887) of eighty-four, and two grandchildren, Mrs. Cabot and Mrs. Susan Howes.

To the neighboring town of Ipswich, the town of Beverly has been placed nnder deep obligations for some of its most vigorous and brightest intellects. Notable above all his professional brethren of that time was Nathan Dane, born in Ipswich, December 29, 1752. He was of English ancestry, the first of the name having settled in Andover, Ipswich and Gloucester. It will be noticed, by one who will closely scan the chroni- cles of our early settlements and note the achievements

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of our foremost citizens, that no Englishman became so truly great as when transplanted to America. All the inherent nobility of character of long lines of an- cestors, latent for generations, first finds expression here.

The sou of a farmer, Mr. Dane worked on his fa- ther's farm till he was twenty-one, acquiring that physical stamina which supported him through the unremitted labors of a long life. He graduated from Harvard in 1778, immediately after which he taught school in Beverly, where, in 1782, he began practic- ing law. In this latter year, and the three years suc- ceeding, he was a representative at the General Court of Massachusetts ; after which for three years he was a delegate to Congress, and for five years, beginning with 1790, a member of the Massachusetts Senate. He was on a committee to revise the State laws, in 1795, and a presidential elector in 1812. His enduring monument is the celebrated "ordinance of 1787," of which Daniel Webster said, in the United States Senate, in 1830 :

" We are accustomed to praise the law-givers of antiquity ; we help to perpetuate the fame of Solon and Lycurgus ; but I doubt whether one single law of any law-giver, ancient or modern, has produced effects of a more distinct and marked and lasting character than the ordinance of '87. . . . It fixed, forever, the character of the population in the vast regions northwest of the Ohio, by excluding from them involuntary servitude. It impressed upou the soil itself, while it was yet a wilder- ness, an incapacity to hear up any other than freemen. It laid the io- terdict agaiost personal servitude, in original compact, not only deeper than all local law, but deeper, also, than all local constitution."

The great labor of his lite was " A General Abridge- ment and Digest of American Law," published 1823- '29, the material for which he began to gather as early as 1782; the first general code of American law, and of incalculable value to the country. The pri- vate life of Mr. Dane was exemplary, his public life every way to be admired. By his benefactions, as well as by his literary productions, he has caused his name to be remembered. By a donation of $15,000, he established the "Dane Professorship of Law," at Harvard, and was a donor to the Dane Law Lib- rary, of Ohio, and other institutions,

His valuable life was prolonged to eighty-three years, during sixty of which he pursued his studies. Although surviving to 1835, well into the nineteenth century, he yet belongs to the eighteenth, the forma- tive period of our political history. His home was opposite the old Sonth Church, in the house (still standing) built by Capt. Benjamin Ellingwood about I784, one of the first (four) brick houses erected in Beverly, the others being the dwellings of Andrew, George and John Cahot. The monument to Mr. Dane, in the IIale Street Cemetery, bears an inscrip- tion by Judge Story.

In the year 1781, Robert Endicott, a descendant of Governor John Endicott, removed from Danvers to Beverly, where he dicd in 1819, aged sixty-two years. He was born on the ancient Endicott farm, now be- longing to William Endicott, of London. His son, the venerable and well known William Endicott, the

only survivor in the seventh generation from Gov. John Endicott, resides in Beverly, at the advanced age of eighty-eight. He began business here as a clerk with "Squire " Rantoul, and for thirty-six years owned and occupied the drug store at the corner of Cabot and Washington Streets. He retired from act- ive business twenty-five years ago, but still maintains relations with several financial and charitable institu- tions.

We have seen that our town was particularly favor- ed in its ministers, such as Hale, Blowers, Willard, Mc Kean and Chipman. The medical profession also was adorned with names whose Instre is yet undimmed. The minister and the doctor of early times exerted a greater influence than even the politician ; in truth, he who attended to the spiritual welfare of the people, as well as he who ministered to their physical well being, was considered competent also to shape their political affairs.

The first school-master, Mr. Hardie, was also a dis- penser of medicines, and succeeding him came the Hales, Robert and Robert, Jr., the latter already no- ticed. Robert Hale was son of the Rev. John Hale, born November, 1668, died 1719.

A Dr. John Herrick was here in 1721, and a resi- dent physician was Dr. Benj. Jones, a native of Bev- erly in the second parish, who had an extensive prac- tice, and died in 1778. He was distinguished for his active interest in public affairs and in the welfare of the community.

Dr. Timothy Clement, who married a daughter of Capt. William Dodge, had a promising practice, but died at an early age. His successor was Dr. Israel Woodbury, born 1734, died 1797, who resided on his ancestral estate, and whose life was a blessing to the parish. Dr. Isaae Spofford, who died 1786, at the early age of thirty-five, was skilled alike in his pro- fession and in music, and was very popular. His gravestone in the old cemetery is conspicnous for its Latin inscriptions and Masonic emblems. Dr. Larkin Thorndike, another native of this town, who died at Norfolk, Va., also practiced here, and was appointed a surgeon in the navy under the administration of President Adams. Dr. Tucker, Dr. Orne and Dr. Lakeman (from Hamilton) all died without achieving the great distinction promised in early life.

A man of prominence was Dr. Elisha Whitney, born 1747, graduated at Harvard, 1766, who began practice in Ipswich. After several voyages as surgeon on board the privateers under Captains Hill and Giles, be returned to his profession, removing to Beverly in 1792, where he resided till his death, in 1807, beloved and highly respected.

Dr. Joshua Fisher, who was born in Dedham, 1749, and graduated at Harvard in 1766, came to Beverly in early manhood, after practising a while in Ipswich and Salem. Like Dr. Whitney, he sailed as surgeon in a privateer, but was unfortunate in his maritime experiences, the vessel being driven ashore in the

Abiel Abbot

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British Channel, and he with difficulty avoiding cap- ture. Escaping from England to France, after a num- ber of dangerous ad ventures, he embarked in another privateer for America, which he ultimately reached. He was interested in that first cotton factory in 1788, and his public spirit always led him into similar en- terprises for the good of the people. Through his great talent and active pursuit of his profession, he amassed a large fortune, much of which he expended in charitable works. He endowed the Fisher Pro- fessorship of Natural History at Harvard, with twenty thousand dollars, and founded the Beverly Charitable Society, now known as the Fisher Charitable Society, which has been so beneficial in ameliorating the con- dition of the poor.

Of the donation to this society one hundred dollars was to be set aside to accumulate for one hundred years, as an available fund at the expiration of that period. Dr. Fisher died in 1835, aged eighty-four.

From this brief biographical excursion, let us re- turn to the uarration of events. It is a matter of re- gret that we cannot much more than enumerate the names of those departed worthies, whose many vir- tues adorn the age in which they lived. The best lessons of history are to be drawn from the lives of great and good men and women, who worked with singleness of purpose and high aims for the advance- ment of their fellows. Many such-though, from the limitations of their environment, nnknown to the world at large-we find living in the pages of our lo- cal history. Their lives shine with devotion to prin- ciple and religion ; they had faith in their God, their country and the home of their adoption ; and the torch they lighted at the fires of their primitive hearth-stones they have handed down to us, their de- scendants.

THE MOTHER CHURCHES .- As two new churches were founded in the opening years of this century, and important changes took place in the first and second parishes, at this point it would seem fitting to take a survey of some matters ecclesiastical.

What was the origin of the First Church, has been shown ; that its growth was identical with that of the town, and their affairs inseparably interwoven. Its first ministers and officers were the leaders of the com- munity, as the church, indeed, formed the nucleus of the town.

Its ministers, mentioned in order, were: Hale, Blowers, Champney, Willard, McKean, up to the close of the eighteenth century, when the last-named was called to the presidency of Bowdoin College, and was succeeded, Dec. 13, 1803, by the Rev. Abiel Abbott.

The following biographical sketch of Dr. Abbott was prepared by the Rev. Dr. A. P. Peabody, a life- long friend of the family, and is entitled to the read- er's thoughtful attention :

" ABIEL ABBOTT, the youngest son of John and Abi- gail Abbott, was born at Andover, August 17, 1771. Two elder brothers-John, professor of ancient lan-

guages at Bowdoin College, and Benjamin, the so widely-known, revered and beloved principal of Phil- lips' Exeter Academy-had already graduated at Har- vard. Abiel was the pupil of Dr. Pemberton, at Phil- lips' Academy, in Andover, whence he entered col- lege, graduating the second scholar in his class, in 1792. He maintained ever afterwards a close connec- tion with the college, where he was held in high re- gard, as was evinced in his appointment as Phi Beta Kappa orator in 1800, his being invited to deliver the Dudleian Lecture in 1819 and his receiving the degree of Doctor of Divinity in 1821. On graduating he re- turned to Andover and became assistant teacher, afterwards principal of the academy, at the same time pursuing the study of theology under the direction of his pastor, Rev. Jonathan French. In 1795 he was ordained as minister of the First Church in Haverhill. In the following year he married Eunice, daughter of Ebenezer Wales, of Dorchester. His ministry at Haverhill was eminently successful. Its precious memory long survived him, and was lovingly recalled by old people who had him for their pastor in their childhood or youth. But his salary was inadequate to the support of his family and he was, therefore, and for that sole reason, compelled to resign his charge.

On his release from his engagement at Haverhill, Mr. Abbott's services were eagerly songht by several va- cant parishes. He preached with great acceptance at the Brattle Square Church, in Boston, and, anticipat- ing the probability of his being invited to its pastor- ate, the First Church in Beverly chose him as its minister, voting him as salary the stipend which (with the addition, however, of a parsonage-house and fuel for its fires, and the education of his sons) would have been offered him in Boston.

This salary throughout his lifetime was larger than was paid by any parish in Massachusetts, except in Boston. The Beverly parish was and continued to be, during his entire ministry, very large, embracing a population at the outset of twenty three hundred, aud never less than fifteen hundred. The town was then the fourth in the State, in point of wealth, with a better harbor than that of Salem, with a great deal of foreign commerce as well as with a large amount of capital lucratively invested in the fisheries. It was the residence of several merchants of distinc- tion, who afterwards removed to Boston, and whose ships sailed thence and brought thither their return cargoes. It was also the home of several professional men of the highest eminence, as Nathan Dane and Joshua Fisher, and the parish comprised many fam- ilies of wealth and culture. Hence, in a worldly point of view, the place was especially desirable, while its pulpit had been filled by men of superior ability and merit, his two nearest predecessors having been called to the presidency-one of Harvard, the other of Bowdoin College. Such a pastorate made great de- mands on its incumbent, and in this case they were more than fully met.

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HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

No ministry can ever have been more prosperous than Dr. Abbott's, in the full attendance on its ser- vices, in the undivided respect and affection of the people, and in the tokens of religious interest and spiritual edification, By those who knew Dr. Abbott best it has been often said that they never knew his like, or, for his peculiar life-work, his equal. His personal endowments were of a rare order. His countenance bore the impress of his character, at once grave and gracious, commanding and winning, with a benignity whose attractions none could re- sist, yet with a dignity which would keep a flip- pant tongue in silence. His manners were those of a born gentleman, who could not be otherwise than courteous, meek, considerate and kind. His conversa- tional power was almost unique. In whatever society he might be, without assuming the leadership, he could not bear other than the chief part, and those who were else the most ready to talk, in his pres- ence subsided into greedy listeners. He was unsur- passed in vivid and picturesque description and nar- rative, and he possessed the rare and precious art of giving religious admonition, counsel or consolation, without seeming to give it-of virtually preaching the gospel without unseasonably interlarding his con- versation with conventionally sacred names and phrases, so that all that he meant to say reached the inward ear, only after, sometimes long after, his voice had died upon the outward ear. When Monroe, as President of the United States, was making his northern tour, he breakfasted with Israel Thorndike, and Dr. Abbott was one of the guests. Some time afterward the President said to a visitor that the best talker that he ever heard was a clergyman who breakfasted with him at Mr. Thorndike's. While Dr. Abbott thus adorned the choicest society, he made himself none the less welcome in the poorest homes, and with persons of the lowest standard of intelli- gence and culture. Without the wretched farce of condescension, he so identified himself with all the people under his charge that he felt, and therefore always seemed, at his ease among them, as belonging with them, and they had no experience of restraint or awkwardness as with one who stooped to them from a loftier plane than theirs. He was the most assiduous of pastors. Of course, in so large a parish he would not be a frequent visitor in every house, yet there was not a family in his flock which he did not know intimately, and in which there was not a correspond- ing sense of intimacy with him ; nor was there a child whom he did not know, or who was not made the hap- pier by meeting him and having his unfailing smile and kind word of recognition. A large part of his time was devoted to the sick, infirm and afflicted, who received his most tender ministries and always felt that he came to them in their need and sorrow as a messenger of divine support and comfort. Nor was he less mindful of the poor, and while gener- ous to them to the utmost of his means, he kuew

how to stimulate and direct the charity of those who had ability and leisure for the work of Chris- tian love.

· Dr. Abbott was, in an important sense, the minis- ter of the town, no less than of his own parish. There was no public occasion on which he did not officiate, nor any public enterprise that tended to im- provement or progress in which he did not bear a foremost part. For many years he was chairman of the school committee, and his reading of his annual report was among the first items of business at the an- nual town-meeting, which he always opened with an impressive prayer. He presided at the school exami- nations, and the pupils listened eagerly on those oc- casions to the closing address which he always gave.

In the pulpit Dr. Abbott's mauner was impressive to the last degree. He was never impassioned, and never cold; but there was a calm, equable frvor, in- dicating a full flow of devout feeling, without ebb or ripple, sustaining the unflagging attention of the audience, and adapted to make the entire service to the serious hearer, as it manifestly was to the preach - er, a continuous act of devotion. His voice was clear, strong and flexible, and his utterance was perfectly natural, with no pulpit tone, but as it might have been in conversation on solemn themes. Nature shaped him for an orator, and he remained unspoiled by art. What he should say seemed his sole concern ; his un- studied saying of it could have been only made worse by the attempt to make it better. His sermons were scriptural, evangelical, in the true sense of the word, in a style elegant without being ornate, sufficiently simple for the receptivity of any person of ordinary intelligence, yet so thoughtful as to command the close attention and strong interest of those of the most ad- vanced culture. They were remarkable for so strict an appropriateness to time and space that many of the best of them could have been preached elsewhere or at a later time only with large omissions or changes. Nophase of the passing day, or occasion of public inter- est, or striking event in the larger or smaller circle, was suffered to pass without being made to yield up its fitting lessons of truth or duty. His sermons for the Sunday service were always carefully written, and such of them as admitted of it, especially his frequent expository sermons, bore the tokens of extended read- ing and faithful study. He had at the same time a great facility of extempore utterance, or rather, of thorough preparation without writing; and some of his most appreciative hearers thought that he ap- peared at his very best in the unwritten discourses, sometimes in series lasting through several weeks or months, which he was wont to deliver in a chapel erected expressly for evening services.

Dr. Abbott's devotional services ;had an indelible and cherished place in the memory of all who listened to them. They were not preaching prayers, but com- posed wholly of simple and lofty forms of praise and supplication. It was the custom in his church, as in

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the New England churches generally, to seud in ' notes,' requesting public prayer, or thanksgiving, in case of bereavement, severe illness, or recovery there- from, the birth of a child, being ' bound to sea,' or re- turn from a voyage.

Dr. Abbott, without ever compromising the digni- ty of the service, or entering into details unfit for the sanctuary, would so make reference to every individ- ual case, that he would seem to bear heavenward and to lay upon the heavenly altar the burden or joy of each soul in a form denuded of all earthliness, and fully fit to be heard on high. The children of the parish enjoyed his special care. The old institution of 'catechiziog' was with him a matter, not of form, but of deep concern, and he made it such a service that no child was ever willingly absent from it. He not unfrequently addressed the children on Sundays, and sometimes had special services for them in the chapel, while they learned very early to listeu to his sermons, and many a dull child who carried home no nieagre report of one of his discourses, would com- mand neither attention nor memory when any one else filled the pulpit.

The earliest Sunday-school in New England, if not in the United States, was opened in 1810, by two ladies of his church, after the example and method of Robert Raikes. This school, which had, from the outset, their pastor's approval and furtherance, was never discontinued, but was, after a few years, re- moved to the church, and was the nucleus of a still flourishing Sunday-school, subsidized by a considera- ble fund, the legacy of one of its superintendents, who was trained under Dr. Abbott's nurture and influ- ence.

Dr. Abbott added to his distinctively professional gifts that of superior musical taste and talent. He had the best voice in the congregation. The old church had no space in which an organ could be erected till it was remodelled after his death, and whenever the chorister was absent, Dr. Abbott led the singing from the pulpit, as he did at the communion service, at the monthly ante-communion lecture, and at the chapel. Dr. Abbott was a Unitarian, of the type commonly, though incorrectly denoted under the name of Arian. But while he explicitly de- clared and defended his own opinions in the pulpit, he was indisposed to controversy, sought peace among the churches, was at many points in close sympathy with clergymen of a different creed, and was associated with not a few of them in intimate friendship and in the interchange of professional services.

When the disruption of the Congregational body took place, probably no member of that body had so much reason to regret it as he had, nor was there any one with whom his friends of the opposite party were so sorry to part fellowship. In his family and in all the relations and intercourse of society Dr. Abbott, by his sweetness, gentleness, unselfishness of spirit, was con- stantly diffusing happiness, and in his cheerful, sunny

temperament received largely of the happiness which he gave. His home was rich in all that can make life beautiful, and that can reuder the Christian house- hold at once a centre of refining and beautifying min- istries and influences for this world, and a training school for heaven.

In 1818 Dr. Abbott's health had become so far ini- paired by incessaut labor as to make a rest and change of scene desirable, and he spent the winter in South Carolina and Georgia. He performed the return jour- ney alone, in a sulky, driving through regions where he was warned of serious danger from the savageness of the poor whites; but all along his way making friends and receiving civilities and kindnesses.

In 1827 he was again an invalid, and spent the winter principally in Cuba. He seemed in the spring entirely restored, but on his passage homeward, in the harbor of New York, he was seized with a sudden and profuse hemorrhage from the lungs, which proved almost instantly fatal, leaving him but a few moments for some last directions as to his worldly affairs, and for the expression of his cheerful readiness to de- part in the full assurance of a blessed immortality. His death occurred on the 7th of June, 1828.

Dr. Abbott published a considerable number of sermons and other pamphlets. The only volume that he gave to the press was of 'Sermons to Seamen,' which in its time was highly prized, especially by shipmasters and sailors.

After his death his 'Letters from Cuba,' a charm- ing record of travel and sojourn in an island theu lit- tle known at the North, were edited, with a memoir of the author, by his friend, Judge Story.

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History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 193

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton), ed. n 85042884-1 Publication date: 1888 Publisher: Philadelphia : J. W. Lewis & Co. Number of Pages: 1538

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton), ed. n 85042884-1
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: Philadelphia : J. W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1538