History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 220

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 220

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Sunday morning, April 19, 1789, Rev. James Chandler died in his eighty-third year. He was a native of Andover and a graduate of Harvard, 1728. His wife was Mary, daughter of Rev. Mr. Hale, of Byfield, who survived him. The parish was at the expense of his funeral. The memorial over his grave in Union Cemetery was erected in 1791. The parish ordered a "Decent Monument." Mr. Chandler left his estate to the parish, on condition that his widow and colored servant, Sabina, should be the wards of the parish until the decease of each. Perhaps there were other conditions, but these were the most im- portant. John Tenney, who lived opposite Union Cemetery, was executor of the will. Some difficulty arose between him and the parish, and the conditions

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not being satisfactory, a vote was passed to relinquish the gift. Mr. Solomon Nelson accepted the condi- tious, and the Chandler farm, now in part owned by his grandson, Humphrey Nelson, came into his pos- session. While " Madam Chandler" lived the parish abated all taxes.

Mr. Tenney had oversight of the property, and was frequently brought in conflict with the parish. At a later date he removed to Northwood, N. H. From Mr. Chandler's death until 1797, when Mr. Isaac Braman, of Norton, Mass., was called as pastor, sixty-four candidates and pulpit supplies made their gifts known to the parish. Samuel Tomb, afterwards of West Newbury, was one of them and popular. Mr. Braman was " voted eighty pounds and ten cords of good merchantable wood, to be delivered at his door, as his yearly salary, and added ten pounds yearly ; when corn shall be more than four shillings per Bushel, with two hundred pounds ; one-half to be paid in one year; the other half to be paid within two years. Provided he should not remain twenty years, then a part to be refunded ; or, if he prefers, one hundred aud fifty pounds withont conditions; then one-half in one year; the other in two years." Mr. Braman accepted the last amount. Committees were appointed to provide for the council, to shore the meeting-house, to see good order kept, and to keep the parsonage and elders' pews, deacons' and other seats clear for the council and singers. The or- dination took place June 7, 1797. It is said to have been a great event; the parish kept open house, and many booths and refreshment wagons supplied the multitude with food. Mr. Palmer, of Needham, preached from Lnke xiv. 23. Dr. Dana, of Ipswich, gave the charge; other parts wereby Messrs. Cleve- land, of Chebaco (now Essex); Clark, of Boston ; Bradford, of Rowley; and Phineas Adams, of West Haverhill. The parish were not perfectly united in Mr. Braman. Eighteen members signed a remonstrance on the ground of suspected Arminianism as under- stood in the theological terms of that day. One would have seemed wild to have suspected it at a later period. Rev. Mr. Braman's first service in this town was November 13, 1796 ; the text at the morning ser- vice was from 2 Cor. xiii. 5, and in the afternoon from Lam. iii. 27. Soon after his settlement, the question was agitated, whether the parish had a title to the lot on which the meeting-house stood, which led to some- thing of a controversy and litigation at much expense. No deed could be found, and what the result was is not known. There were extensive made repairs ou the house in 1816. There is an itemized statement of the cost in the hand-writing of Samuel Adams, in the second book of parish records. There was a bell pur- chased at that time which was hung in the tower. It was cast at Panl Revere's foundry. Its weight was eight hundred pounds, and its cost abont four hundred and fifty dollars. The names of the donors of the bell are on record in the second book of the parish and

were seventy-five in number. Capt. Benjamin Adams, father of the parish clerk, headed the list, aud Cuffee Dole, with his single dollar, ended it. It is remem- bered as worthy of note that two men lifted the bell ; not a remarkable feat. This same bell now swings in the tower of the new church on Clark Street.

In 1817 there was an attempt to introduce instru- mental music into the choir. A bass-viol, bassoon and clarionet were suggested. That year it was neg- atived ; the next year, however, the parish voted that either of the Crombie brothers-Aaron, Benjamin or Nathaniel-were to have five dollars for one year's performance on either of the above-named instru- ments. In 1819 the parish bought a bass-viol.

At about this time some method of warming the meeting-house was debated, and in 1822 a stove, then just coming into use, was set up, and in 1828 another, on an improved pattern (a gift from Paul Spofford, of New York), was placed in its stead. In 1832 a com- plete change of the interior was made. The square pews, so familiar for more than sixty years, were all removed, and narrow slips of the modern style built in their room. The pulpit was also removed from the side to the easterly end of the building, and the door where formerly the ladies of the parish had been as- sisted to dismount from their pillions was boarded up.

Leaving at this point the Congregational Parish in what was then generally called New Rowley in their remodeled house for worship, to commemorate which and the first century of their existence Rev. Mr. Bra- man, on December 6, 1832, delivered his historical discourse, we return to Byfield, and briefly trace the leading events in the history of that parish, which was apparently of Newbury origiu, and yet around which the dearest interests of very many Rowley families have always centred. The pastorate of Mr. Hale was doubtless successful. Rev. Moses Parsons, of Gloucester, the second minister was a graduate of Harvard in 1736, and was ordained in Byfield June 20, 1744. His eminent sons-Eben, the merchant, and Theophilus, chief justice of the Supreme Court of the State-have made Byfield widely known.

In 1746 the second meeting-bouse, fifty-six by forty- five feet, with steeple and spire, was built. The bell was the gift of Ebenezer Parsons. Its weight was eight hundred and eighty-five pounds. This church and parish were much agitated by the religious ex- citement that resulted from Whitefield's preaching. A complaint of Benjamin Plumer against Mr. Par- sons was that he had never given " Thanks for such an unspeakable favor to the World as Mr. Whitefield."

In October, 1768, "the difficult, perplexed State of onr public affairs " called for a church fast. Another fast day was called for in Nov., 1773, " on account of the severe sickness." This sickness was said to have been a malignant fever, perhaps of a typhoid type. Throat distemper was very fatal here in 1735 and '36. From October of one year to the same mouth iu the following year one hundred and four died-said to

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have been one-seventh of the population. Nearly one-half of the number are thought to have been from the Rowley families in the parish. Again there was a day of fasting in June, 1774, "That God would in- terpose for our help, and save this Province and land in this day of perplexity and distress."

Late in Mr. Parsons' life charges were made against him by Deacon Coleman, with Garrisonian vehe- mence, that he had attempted to sell his colored ser- vant Violet. Coffin, in his "History of Newbury," gives a minute account of this controversy. The third pastor was Rev. Elijah Parish, of Lebanon, Conn., a graduate of Dartmouth in 1785 (Hanover, N. H., then was but little changed from a wilderness) and ordained December 20, 1787. He was remark- able for untiring industry and mental endowments of no ordinary kind. Jointly with Dr. Morse, he pub- lished "The Gazetteer of the Eastern Continent " and the "History of New England." "Modern Geogra- phy " and the " Bible Gazetteer " are his own works. They were all useful books, and were highly appreci- ated. At many an American fireside these books were read with deep interest, conveying that information about their own country and the great world without which was never forgotten. After the death of Dr. Parish, which occurred Oct. 25, 1825, a volume of his sermons was published,-a remarkable collection, to have been delivered to a small country congregation. His people strongly objected to his being absent from his own pulpit, and he but rarely exchanged with other ministers. It has been intimated that, to some extent, he was thought to have sympathized with the Unitarian wing of the Congregational body, but his published discourses show that any such ideas were purely imaginary, and horn of the agitation of the times.

During the early part of the century, when political spirit ran high, Dr. Parish took an uncompromising stand for the Federalist doctrine, and, in consequence, had some bitter enemies, especially in the Rowley part of the parish. These feuds all died out, how- ever, and this truly noble man left the world lamented by all who knew him. In the religions history of the town we have now to consider the entering wedge of separation from the only legally-recognized, ecclesias- tical body of the eighteenth century in New England, viz., the Congregational Church. The thought of any divergence was probably never conceived among the illiterate members of Mr. Chandler's congregation until the awakening caused by the preaching of Mr. Whitefield. Many impulsive men were soon stirred to enthusiasm by his work, and the Middle and East- ern States were alive with itinerants.

The first record of any such irregular work in what is now Georgetown, was, as has been previously stated, early in 1754, when Timothy Symmes was accused of sharp and (as some of the brethren called it) impious criticisms on the preaching of Mr. Chand- ler at an evening meeting conducted by Mr. Symmes at

Ensign John Plnmer's on February 10th. These meetings, held perhaps on Sunday evenings, had evi- dently been going on for some time, and had been opposed by Mr. Chandler, who in his sermon, Febru- ary 10th, becoming alarmed at the strength or spirit of the movement, openly condemned it. In 1755 so many had withdrawn that the absentees are referred to as in a way of separation (or in a partial state of organization). The families of Brocklebank, Plumer, Adams and Boynton seem to have been the most prominent.

Their meetings were held in the school-house, which stood near the house of Mr. Wood, now James Gor- don's. This movement, originally, perhaps, only the result of a dislike to Mr. Chandler for lack of zeal, finally became so positive that those interested de- clared themselves Separatists, and in 1757 were so named by the parent Church, and the result was they then withdrew from the Church and congregation permanently. After the new meeting-house was built, the old house was sold to the Separatists, taken down and rebuilt at Hale's Corner, in what is now Groveland. At this time, however, probably through the influence of Rev. Mr. Smith and the Baptist Church in Haverhill, organized in 1765, they began to be called Anabaptists.

January 13, 1769, the parish voted, "to abate the People called Annabaptists their Parish rates the year past, those of them that had tendered their Sertificats To the Assessors of said Parish, thereby signifying the Baptist method to be their Purswaision." In the meeting-house thus rebuilt they held meetings for several years, Mr. Eliphaz Chapman, afterwards of Maine, preaching for them more than any other min- ister. Rowley, Bradford and Newbury were repre- sented in the congregation. The critics of Rev. Mr. Parsons, of Byfield, were perhaps among them. Mr. Smith, of Haverhill, doubtless had preached here before 1769, and in so satisfactory a manner that even at that early day the Separatists began popularly to be known as Anabaptists. Samnel Harriman, after- wards elder in New Rowley, is thought to have been the first Separatist to unite with the Baptists, he being a constituent member of the Haverhill Church. On May 4, 1781, eight males, three of whom were resi- dents of Boxford, who had been baptized, but were not as yet members of any church, petitioned the Baptist Church in Haverhill to become a branch of that church. Some Baptist churches like Newton, N. H., and this of Haverhill, had several branch churches soon after this time. The old meeting-house having come into their possession, was again taken down, and this time was rebuilt within the old parish limits, to the chagrin, it has been said, of some who twelve years before had been highly gratified to see it removed, and those who worshipped in it, across the parish borders. It was set directly in front of the saw-mill then or soon after owned by John Wood. On August 19, 1785, this branch was established as a

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distinct church, with twenty-eight members. Rev. Mr. Smith, of Haverhill, preached on the occasion. In May of that year Elder William Ewing, of Shutes- bury, became the first minister of this church, and was dismissed to Medfield in March, 1789. Dr. Jeremiah Chaplin became a member at the age of ten years, during Mr. Ewing's ministry. Rev. Charles Wheeler, a few years later, when a mere boy, also became a mem- ber. He was afterwards President of Washington Col- lege in Virginia. Both of these were from what is now South Georgetown. In July, 1789, Abishai Crossman, of Chelmsford, was called to the pastorate, and was dismissed in 1793. The membership of the church at this time included Salem, Beverly, Wenham and Danvers. In 1793 forty living in these four towns were dismissed to form the church in Danversport. In June, 1797, Shubael Lovell, of Barnstable, was settled as the minister. At this time the Congrega- tional Treasurer required to be shown a receipt from the Baptists that their parish tax had been paid to their own minister, and that all who had signed the Baptist books, so doing, should then have their tax abated. For several years after Mr. Lovell came, rather inharmonious relations between the old parish and the Baptists existed, finally followed by a civil suit entered against the Congregational parish by Mr. Lovell. The law in 1798 required that any public teachers of piety, religion and morality should be en- titled to legal support, and the Baptists, under this law, claimed what was due them. In 1802 the diffi- culties seem to have come to a settlement. Mr. Lovell's pastorate continued until 1810. He was a man highly esteemed. Josiah Converse, of Portland, came in 1810 and remained until 1818. Mr. Con- verse was deeply interested in improved agriculture, and is said to have introduced the first merino or fine- wooled sheep into town. June 21, 1811, the First Baptist Society in Rowley (now Georgetown) was in- corporated, with forty-eight members. Among them were the Pearsons, Larkins, Dummers and Floyds, of Newbury ; Harrimans, Hales and Hardys, of Brad- ford (now Groveland); Perley and Emerson, of Box- ford; Smiths, of West Newbury ; and Poors, Thur- lows, Tenneys, Chaplins, Nelsons, Jacobs and Morse, of Rowley. The amended law gave any property- holders the right of choice as to the religious organi- zation they would support. Some, perhaps partly from a mercenary motive, chose the Baptist Society at that time, because the expense or tax would be less ; others because they were believers in the doctrines of Thomas Jefferson, as the friend of religions liberty ; and all, because more or less opposed to the spirit which had wholly in theory, if not in practice, ruled in Massachusetts from the first settlement, of com- pulsion in matters of conscience. First meeting of the society held on February 13, 1812. Solomon Nel- son, afterwards deacon, joined the society in 1812, the church in 1816, and soon after was conceded by all to be the chief adviser and wise counselor of the Bap- typical of their faith.

tists. His house on Nelson Street was the journeying ministers' home. One of the last nights that George Dana Boardman, the Karen apostle, spent in this country was under his roof. First annual meeting was held April 7, 1812, with Captain Moses Tenney moderator and Timothy Morse, Jr., clerk. From this date to 1823 committees were appointed annually to fill out certificates of membership, signed by the min- ister and clerk, as the legal method of exemption from paying parish tax to the Congregational collector. After 1823 the law was changed or became obsolete.

January 7, 1823, sixty acres of the old "Shepard farm," then owned by Samnel and Benjamin Plumer, was deeded to this society, for the support of a Cal- vinistic Baptist Gospel ministry, and the society was to come into possession at the decease of the grantors. Not long after it came under the control of the society. It had been occupied and improved as the parsonage farm from the time of Mr. Lovell, and perhaps from a much earlier date. The fifth minister was Simeon Chamberlain, of Westmoreland, N. H., who continued from July, 1819 to September, 1825, followed by Ezra Wilmarth, of Wilmot, N. H., who came in 1826, re- maining until June, 1834. The old meeting-house which had been twice removed and entirely rebuilt, was in January, 1829, by forty yeas to eight nays voted to be too far gone for repairs. Orin Weston bought this relic of the past at auction in 1830 for eighty-nine dollars. It had seen a century of existence, and was from all accounts but a shell. The birds had nested in its interior above, and mice had played on the floor below; and it has been said that one of Mr. John Woods' hens once "stole her nest " under the pulpit, and would come out cackling in service time.

The sounding-board which had echoed the reson- ant voice of Whitefield, that wonderful voice, which could be heard a mile, might until recently, be seen near the roadside at the house of Mr. Weston's family on Main Street.

In 1829 a new meeting-house, forty-five by thirty- five feet, was built near the old house on the parson- age grounds, at a cost of seventeen hundred dollars.

As early as about 1800, and perhaps earlier, another class of irregular meetings in the line of the Separa- tists of a half-century before began to be held to the annoyance of the Congregationalist people and as these meetings lessened the Baptist audiences, when services were held on Sunday, perhaps partly to their annoy- ance also. These school-house preachers, as Mr. Bra- man called them, were fluent, possibly vitoperative, not bound by formal rules or customs, and were at- tractive to those eager for novelty. A Mr. Foster was one of the first, although Elias Smith was doubt- less the first to speak here, and meetings were held at the Pillsbury-house, near Edwin Brown's, on Pills- bury Street, then the home of Jonathan Harriman and family. Many traveling preachers, of both sexes followed, all glorying in the name of " free-will " as

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Nancy Toles, not claiming much gift of argument, but abundant vehemence and zeal; Clarissa Dan- forth, keen and energetic; Harriet Livermore, a rare genius, later a pilgrim to the Holy Land, and other women were active in proclaiming the truth. Scores of converts were baptized in Pentucket pond. Mr. Moses Howe, of Haverhill, a Methodist in belief, but independent of church regulations, often preached, as did all the others in the Centre school-house ; a man of superior natural gifts, enriched by thought and reading. He lived to a great age. " Christian " itinerants, creedless, and with but that one name, but Baptists in practice, were frequently here in the inter- ests of their sect ; among them, Rev. Benjamin'Knight, afterwards a Baptist, who died as the Salem city mis- sionary. Unitarians, as Rev. Mr. Loring, of North Andover, (the father of Hon. G. B. Loring) and Dr. Flint, of Salem, both of whom as another class of Separatists, proclaimed the cardinal principles of their faith in that same school-house.

Mr. Nathaniel Nelson, who built in 1797, the at- tractive old mansion on Elm Street, now owned by his son, William Nelson, was perhaps more continu- ously active in sustaining these varied religious move- ments, than any other of the residents of New Row- ley. From some cause, they all found a congenial field here, especially the sects which made immersion the baptismal rite. At a later day a meeting-house was in contemplation for the Christians or Freewill be- lievers, and some material purchased, of which the windows can still be seen in the shoe-shop of Joshua How, on Elm Street. The Universalist doctrine was perhaps first announced in town in the school-house at South Georgetown, by a Mr. Flagg, and Mr. Farns- worth at the Centre school-house, succeeded about 1818. It early took a tenacious hold, presented as it was by the leading spirits of the denomination, such as Hosea Ballou, Whittemore, Otis Skinner and others, who often spoke at the same school-house. Gradually the movement developed, until on March 13th, 1829, at a meeting held at the house of Moses Nelson, now Chas. E. Chaplin's on Nelson Street, ten males signed a call for a meeting, to form a religious society to be called the First Universalist Society in Rowley. On March 26, 1829, they met at the Centre School-house, with Captain John Killam, moderator, and Sylvanus Nelson, clerk. Had preaching five times that year, and six the year following.

In 1830, fifty-two males became members of the Society by signing the Constitution. The Lows, Nelsons, Harrimans, Spoffords and Killams were ac- tive and especially Colonel John Kimball, the wealthy tanner and farmer, who then owned the Captain Benjamin Adams' place on the Salem road, and who was afterwards regarded, at home and abroad, as the Universalist leader.

In 1831, the Society had services nine times, and probably all held in the school-house, but in Feb- ruary, 1832, at a meeting at Colonel Savory's hotel,

it was decided to build a meeting-house, forty-five by thirty-five feet, which was erected that year at a cost of about twenty-one hundred dollars. The site was on the knoll, much more elevated than at present, where the Town-house now is, and was a part of the old Brocklebank farm. Two stoves were given to the Society, one a gift from John Kimball, the other from David Pingree, Esq., of Salem.

CHAPTER LVI.

GEORGETOWN-(Continued).

GENERAL TOWN HISTORY TO DATE OF INCOR- PORATION.

FROM 1730 to 1770, there are a few surnames to be added to those which are already given as residents in the west parish of Rowley. One was that of Daniel Woodbury, who had doubtless removed here from Beverly, just after the first-named date. Mr. Woodbury, was one of the constituent members of the church in October, 1732, but was not a parish petitioner in 1730. In November, 1732, Richard Woodbury was received to church membership from the second church in Beverly. In November, 1734, Daniel Woodbury was dismissed to the church in Townsend. This family while here probably lived in Marlboro'. Early in 1734, Elizabeth, the wife ot Richard, was admitted to the church. They must have left this locality soon after this date.

The names of Moses Cooper and Phebe his wife, ap- pear on the record in 1735. Several of this surname are buried in Union Cemetery. As the ancestor of this family in Rowley bore the name of Peter, it has been thought that the celebrated Peter Cooper of New York might be a descendant, and attempts have been made to trace the connection, but letters of inquiry were unanswered.

The Pingrees of this date (as did " widow Anne," who was the mother of Job Pingry, a petitioner), lived in the limits of what is now Rowley, on the Blooming- dale road, which was a travelled way as early as 1720.

In 1736, the names of Robert Grog and his wife Hannah, were recorded. They lived near Spofford Street, in the vicinity of Lieut. Abel Spofford's house.

In 1737, Samuel Hazen, supposed to have settled on the John F. Kimball place on East Street, removed to Groton, Mass. This was afterwards the home of Jeremiah and Moses Hazen. Here on Pen Brook a saw-mill was built about 1750, and was in use as late as 1800. This was the homestead of one of the num- erous Hazen families perhaps, until its purchase by Captain William Perley about 1790. About one mile southerly, on land then partially cleared but now forest, was the home of another family of this name, " and fifty years ago the barn was still standing.

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It is said that in the same locality, in a wood-tract now owned by heirs of W. B. Harriman, there were anciently one or two small houses, one of them occu- pied by a Crombie family. John and Rebecca Smith were living in this parish in 1736, supposed to be on West Street, not far from Mrs. Edward Poor's. They removed to Haverhill in 1738. Of this family was perhaps the John Smith who lived in a West Street house, kept an inn or what was so-called, by trade a cooper, and by virtue of a warning of the town of Rowley, sixty years before, was removed to Newbury poor-honse about 1800. The house was then demol- ished.

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History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 220

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