History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 31

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 31

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Respecting no man, says Mr. Bentley, has the pub- lic opinion been more divided than respecting Mr. Hugh Peters. This division of opinion he ascribes to the part he took in the commonwealth of England and in the death of King Charles, though intimating that "unkind reports" had been connected also with

the early part of his life, which reports, however, either never reached New England or were nnheeded there. The Rev. Charles W. Upham, in his Second Century lecture, has vindicated his fame with a gen- erous and warm enthusiasm. But there is no differ- ence of opinion as to the great benefits which his life and labors in Salem, from 1636 to 1641, conferred up- on its people aud its forming social habits and insti- tutions. He objected to the devotion of so much time as had been given to the numerous weekly and occasional lectures, to the neglect of the daily indus- tries, which he fostered as being nearest in the line of evident and pressing duties. His church greatly in- creased, showing that there had been no lack of faith- ful tillage therein. New and valued citizens were attracted to the place. He interested himself in re- forming the police system, encouraged commerce, caused new arts and employments to be introduced, a water-mill was erected, a glass-house, salt works, the planting of hemp was advised, and a regular market was set up. He formed a plan of carrying on fishery, and of coasting and foreign voyages. Amid all his ac- tivities, it is repeated, "he did not forget his church." In Synod and Salem pulpit alike, he made his power constantly and beneficently felt. Clear-headed and wise, he was a check upon the invasion of supersti- tion, and in the excitement caused by Mrs. Ann Hutchinson's doctrine and influence, kept his church in the main free from its disturbing effects, and went, Mr. Bentley thinks, full far in the opposite direction of repression. The Massachusetts Colony, having occasion to find suitable persons to represent their in- terests in England with reference to the laws of excise and trade, it was not strange that Mr. Peters should be selected to be one for this commission. His qualifications for it were evident. His people resisted his acceptance of the appointment and remonstrated against it ; they could not spare him. But they were overborne by the urgency with which the claim for his services was pressed, and finally a reluctant assent was yielded, and on the 3d of August, 1641, he left with his colleagues for England. There he became involved in the revolution which brought Cromwell to supreme power. Peters was his counselor and fa- vored friend, and when the restoration gave back power to Cromwell's enemies, the lives of all his friends were held forfeited. Hugh Peters was a se- lected victim, and as such was beheaded in the Tower Oct. 16, 1660.

Mr. Peters was assisted in his pulpit duties between 1637 and 1640 by Rev. John Fiske, who taught a school in Salem about that time. Mr. Fiske was set- tled afterwards over a church in Wenham and still later in Chelmsford, Massachusetts. It was he-be- fore alluded to in these pages-who copied from the earliest record-book of the church the covenant con- tained therein, with some other minutes, which have lately come to light, and have furnished important evidence as to the form of the first covenant.

1621, and who was sent to the University in July, 1624, being a good scholar, was not the Roger Williams of Rhode Island." So much, Rev. George E. Ellis, D.D., president of the Massachusetts Historical Socie- ty, is reported-in the Boston Daily Advertiser of March 11, 1887-to consider proven by the investigations of the librarian of Brown Uui- versity, Mr. Reuben A. Guild.

HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

The Rev. Edward Norris was settled as a colleague with Mr. Peters March 18, 1640. Mr. Bentley says his was the first ordination which was performed with great public ceremonies in Salem. He had come from England the year before, and joined the church here in December of that year ; had been a teacher and minister in Gloucestershire; was distinguished for learning, was of a tolerant spirit, and had a large and well-balanced mind. He was a man to wield a wide and strong influence, and that for good. He fell upon troubled times, inheriting in his turn the unsettled controversies of his predecessor's ministry. A Mrs. Oliver, a follower of Mrs. Ann Hutchinson, had claimed, in the time of public service, the right of communion, without a covenant, and was sent to prison for disturbing the congregation, though soon set at liberty. During Mr. Norris' ministry she again openly asserted the same right, and was publicly dis- graced.

The Anabaptists were busy. Mr. Endicott set his face against them as disturbers of the peace of the church and of the community ; a few were subjected to punishment, some confined to the town, or laid un- der other humiliating and annoying prohibitions. Mr. Norris took no active part in these proceedings, and seems rather to have endeavored to quiet and repress the public excitement than to promote it, and suc- ceeded in keeping the town in comparative tranquil- lity during his life. He died December 23, 1659, in time to escape the full force of the still greater dis- traction caused by the Quakers who had appeared in Salem in 1657. His abilities, attainments and high character were recognized throughout the colony. He wrote upon affairs of public interest temperately, yet forcibly. He assisted in constructing the system of ecclesiastical discipline "substantially contained in the Cambridge Platform," and yet he refused to substitute in his own church the platform of 1648, which he had helped to shape, for the one already in use, resolutely insisting on the maintenance of his church's independence. At the same time, with a rare consistency, he successfully restrained his own church from meddling in the controversies and the management of other churches.

Mr. Norris was the last of the ministers of the first generation. "The consistent politicks, the religious moderation, and the ardent patriotism of Mr. Norris," says Mr. Bentley, " entitle him to the grateful miem- ory of Salem. He diverted the fury of fanaticism by industry, he quieted alarms by inspiring a military courage, and in the public morals, and a well-di- rected charity, with a timely consent to the incorpo- ration of towns around him, he finished in peace the longest life in the ministry which had been enjoyed in Salem, and died in his charge." 1

Mr. Norris' ministry of nearly twenty years seemed long as measured by the average term of service of

those who had preceded him. But it was short as compared with that of his successor. John Higgin- son, the son of the Rev. Francis, the first minister- " Teacher "-of Salem, was horn at Claybrook, Eng- land, August 6, 1616, and accompanied his parents when they came to New England, in 1629, and was thirteen years old, therefore, when he arrived ; and at that age he joined the church. After his father's death he was assisted by the magistrates and minis- ters, who could not forget what the young church owed to the father, in continuing his education. At the age of twenty, and for four years after, he was chaplain at Fort Saybrook, Connecticut .. In 1641 he taught a school in Hartford, and studied divin- ity with the Rev. Thomas Hooker; in 1643 be- came an assistant to Rev. Henry Whitfield, of Guil- ford, whose daughter he married. From 1651 to 1659 he was in sole charge of the church in Guilford. In that year, 1659, he took passage for his native land. The vessel in which he sailed was obliged by stress of weather to put into Salem harbor. The church in Salem had recently lost its minister. A negotiation with Mr. Higginson was entered into which issued in an engagement on his part to remain and preach for one year. At the end of the year he was invited to become the pastor, accepted the invitation, and was ordained in August, 1660. Already forty-four years old, he continned in the ministry in Salem forty-eight years, till his death, December 9, 1708, at the age of ninety-two years. He was sole minister for twenty- three years, till 1683,-except that for four years, from 1672 to 1676, he had a so-called "assistant," 2 who did not assist, as is explained farther on. In 1683, he being then sixty-seven years of age, Rev. Nicholas Noyes became his colleague. The settle- ment of Mr. Higginson was signalized by an addition to the covenant of the church, as a solemn declara- tion against the teachings and practices of the Qua- kers, as has been mentioned. It had been the custom of the church, from time to time, to "renew " the covenant, as has been noticed before, an act equiva- lent to a solemn re-affirmation of loyalty to its vows, ' and which was accompanied, in two instances at least, by an addition to its original form, for the purpose of putting on record the church's sentiment or verdict upon special dangers and evils existing at the time. Thus, at the settlement of Rev. Mr. Peters, the church prefaced a " renewal of the covenant " with a pream- ble which has already been given on a previous page, it being of the nature of a penitent confession that they had experienced the danger of coming to "sit loose to the covenant made with God," and found how apt they were "to wander into by-paths, even to the loosing of their first aims in entering into church fellowship." So, now, in 1660, we come upon anoth- er tide-mark, showing how high had arisen the feel- ing against the Quaker invasion, the following being

1 Col. Mass. llist. Soc. for 1799 : p. 259.

2 Charles Nicholet.

SALEM.

appended to the covenant : "When also considering the power of temptation amongst us by reason of the Quakers' doctrine to the leavening of some in the place where we are, and endangering of others, [We] do see cause to remember the admonition of our Savior Christ to his disciples. Math. 16: Take heed and beware of the leaven of the doctrine of the Phar- isees, and do judge so far as we understand it that the Quakers' doctrine is as bad or worse than that of the Pharisees; therefore we do covenant by the help of Jesus Christ to take heed and beware of the leaven of the doctrine of the Quakers." "This appendix to the covenant sufficiently shows the stand taken by Mr. Higginson towards the Quakers. It is difficult in our time to conceive the excitement which the ar- rival of a shipload of Quakers from England in 1660, the year of Mr. Higginsou's ordination, caused in the Massachusetts colony. A vigorous persecution had been in progress for some time before, with the usual result of increasing the boldness and multiplying the number of the new sect. They were not altogether an inoffensive people. For, though they disclaimed the use of physical violence even in protection of themselves, among them were those who knew the irritating power of arrogant and exasperating speech, and did not spare the use of it, accusing the magis- trates, ministers and the members of the churches of ignorance of the true religion, and of being unac- quainted with its spirit. Their interruption of pub- lic worship, their open denunciations of time-serving and hireling ministers, and their fanatical violations of good order and the public quiet in some cases, were calculated to inflame the popular mind to the highest pitch of anger ; and while this does not ex- cuse the heavy hand of persecution raised upon them, it explains and palliates the disgust and antipathy felt by many reasonable and worthy persons towards such intemperate revilers of men and women, who were, at least, as good as themselves, and were held in honor-deservedly or not-as appointed chiefs in church and state. "The wildest fanaticism on their part was met by a frenzied bigotry on the other." Mr. Higginson was active in turning upon them an unre- lenting harrying, for which Mr. Bentley says he was sorry afterwards. Eighteen of these unhappy per- sons are said to have been publicly punished in Sa- lem in the year 1661. And, as is always the case when men suffer for their opinions, the most blame- less met with the same fate as the most turbulent and aggressive. After the restoration of King Charles II., he took their case into consideration and put a stop to the persecution. It had lasted about five years. The excitement soon died away when the per- secution ceased.

A " Direction " for a public profession of faith was prepared by Mr. Higginson, and printed in a dateless tract, already referred to, probably, says Judge White,. in 1680, which, however, was " to be looked upon as a fit means whereby to express that their common

faitlı and salvation, and not to be made use of as an imposition upon any." This " Direction" became famons in the friendly but controversial discussion, already alluded to as having occurred thirty to forty years ago, between Rev. Dr. Worcester and Judge White, as to the form of the first covenant, it being regarded hy the former as substantially identical with a confession of faith adopted by the church in 1629, along with the covenant, a position earnestly con- tended against by the latter as wholly untenable.

In 1672 there came a man to Salem from Virginia, who, for a few years, filled quite a large place in the towu and church-Mr. Charles Nicholet. He was invited to be the assistant of Mr. Higginson for a year, "for trial." At the end of the year the engage- ment was renewed upon the same terms for another year, one condition of which being that he should have for his maintenance "a free voluntary contribu- tion every Lord's day." When, at the end of the second year, he was offered again the same terms, they were probably not accepted, as, a little later, it was voted that, "it is agreed by a hand and free vote of the town for Mr. Nicholet's continuance amongst us during his life." At the same time (that is, early in 1674) the town voted a grant of as much land on the common as should be needed " for to build a new meeting-house for the worship of God."1 This meet- ing-house was begun and its frame erected, but was never finished. The invitation to Mr. Nicholet, ex- tended by the town instead of by the church-an unusual, if not an unprecedented proceeding-and the building of another meeting-house at some distance from the established place of worship, were painful proofs to the elder minister that there were restless and disaffected persons in his congregation not unwilling to show their discontent. "His enemies," says Mr. Bentley, "made by persecution, now had power to dis- tress him." His support had been partly withheld. Some who were not unfriendly thought it time that a portion of his burden of varied duties and wearing responsibilities should be transferred to an assistant. But the church had taken offense and exception at the manner in which the assistant was called-that is, in the town's having acted by itself. A remonstrance was sent to the General Court, which tribunal answered by declaring its disapprobation of such a departure from established usages, characterizing it as not only very irregular, but as "expressly contrary to the known wholesome laws of this jurisdiction." Mr. Hig- ginson disapproved the course pursued by his assistant and the town. Mr. Nicholet explained and promised to be on his guard, but apparently continued his ministry and drew to himself a following of malcon- tents, and kept up the discord till, happily for the town, "after many farewell sermons," he " departed from America forever," in 1676.

As time healed or softened the dissensions that

1 Town Records, pp. 179, 208, 217, 222.

HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

attended Mr. Nicholet's ministry, it also made the burdens carried by the senior pastor, now without an assistant, to be felt more oppressively as he advanced in years. The way was thus prepared for another trial of the experiment of a colleague. In 1682 Mr. Higginson recommended it; and on the 14th of No- vember, 1683, Mr. Nicholas Noyes was ordained. It was a choice fortunate for the church. Mr. Noyes' character, as drawn in the record-book of the church when he died, on the 13th of December, 1717, at the age of nearly seventy years, and at the end of a min- istry of thirty-five years, has been accepted as a just portraiture of the man-a portraiture the more enti- tled to be preserved and reproduced on suitable occa- sions, in that it is a calm after-judgment respecting one who bore a prominent part in the ever-memorable and mournful proceedings of the dark days of the witchcraft trials. It is the testimony of his contem- poraries; of those who should be presumed to know him best; who knew his mistakes and the sincerity of his lamentation on their account. "He was extra- ordinarily accomplished for the work of the ministry, whereunto he was called. Considering his superior genius; his pregnant wit; strong memory ; solid judgment ; his great acquisition in human learn- ing and knowledge; his conversation among men, especially with his friends, so very pleasant, enter- taining and profitable; his uncommon attainments in the study of divinity ; his eminent sanctity, gravity and virtue ; his serious, learned and pious perform- ances in the pulpit; his more than ordinary skill in the prophetical parts of Scripture; his wisdom and usefulness in human affairs ; and his constant solici- tude for the public good : it is no wonder that Salem and the adjacent part of the country, as also the Churches, University and people of New England, justly esteem him as a principal part of their glory." For one to have saved such a reputation as this, who had been a chief actor in bringing those accused of witchcraft to punishment, argues rare excellences of character. Mr. Bentley accords him exceptional honor as the one among all those ministers who were swept along by the storm, misled, silenced, non-pro- testing, accountable-the one who made all possible reparation afterwards ; an open, confessing, self-saeri- ficing atonement for the evil he had done and caused, to the extent of his ability. "Noyes came out and publicly confessed his error ; never concealed a cir- cumstance ; never excused himself; visited, loved and blessed the survivors whom he had injured; asked forgiveness always, and consecrated the residue of life to bless mankind. He never thought, in all these things, that he made the least compensation, but all the world believed him sincere." The glooms of the period of the witcheraft visitation have had no parallel, before or since, in the ancient town. It is not our province to depiet its creeping horrors. It stands apart, a story of unrelieved tragedy. It was connected with the church-life of the people, hut it was an epi-

demie mania, an outcropping nightmare of supersti- tion, that swept like a sudden torrent over the region. "From March till August, 1692, . business was interrupted. The town deserted. Terror was in every countenance, and distress in every heart." 1 We thankfully leave the sombre task of telling the sad tale to another.

We introduce here the few remaining minutes to be noted respecting Rev. Mr. Noyes. He was born in Newbury December 22, 1647, and was the nephew of the first minister of Newbury, Rev. James Noyes. For thirteen years before coming to Salem he had been settled in the ministry at Haddam, Conn. He was never married.

During the witcheraft storm Mr. Higginson held himself aloof. "His only fault was his silent con- sent." He had gone too far with the Quakers, and learned the lesson of caution. But it was not in him to be strong enough, old man that he was, where all were stricken with the madness, to sound an alarm and call a halt. It was what all were waiting and praying for, from some one. But probably if any had been brave enough and far-sighted enough to cry aloud in protest, it would only have availed when the tempest was subsiding and far-spent ; earlier it would only have added another victim, possibly, to the pop- ular frenzy. Such a panic-stricken community could only come to its senses slowly, and when the fury of the blast was passed. Mr. Bentley's just reflections are in place here, and in the history of the church should not be omitted : " As soon as the judges ceased to condemn, the people ceased to accuse. Just as after a storm, the people were astonished to see the light at once break out bright again. Terror at the violence and the guilt of the proceedings succeeded instantly to the conviction of blind zeal, and what every man had encouraged all professed to abhor. Few dared to blame other men, because few were in- nocent. They who had been most active remembered that they had been applauded. The guilt and the shame became the portion of the country, while Salem had the infamy of being the place of the transactions. Every expression of sorrow was found in Salem. And after the death of Mr. Higginson, whose only fault was his silent consent, the church, before the choice of another minister, publicly erased all the ignominy they had attached to the dead, by recording a most humble acknowledgment of their error. After the public mind became quiet, few things were done to disturb it. But a diminished population, the injury done to religion, and the distress of the ag- grieved were seen and felt with the greatest sorrow." 1

For six years from the death of Mr. Higginson Mr. Noyes was the sole pastor of the church. He being then nearly sixty-seven years old, Mr. George Curwin, son of Hon. Jonathan Curwin, was ordained as his colleague. Mr. Bentley says that Mr. Curwin was

1 Bentley, pp. 270-271.

SALEM.

proposed by Mr. Noyes in 1709, soon after the death of Mr. Higginson, and would have been immediately ordained if those living beyond the town bridge had not hoped to become a separate church. In 1713 an- other church was formed, which is the lower parish in Danvers. Mr. Curwin's settlement followed in May of the next year. The opening of his ministry was full of promise, and excited in his people high hopes of usefulness,-hopes destined to an early blight. He died Nov. 23, 1717, at the age of thirty- four years, only four and a half years from his ordina- tion. He was boru in Salem May 21, 1683, graduated from Harvard College in 1701, and ordained May 19, 1714. The entry made upon the church book of rec- ords, of date Nov. 23, 1717, after recording his death, adds : " He was highly esteemed in his life, and very deservedly lamented at his death, having been very eminent for his early improvements in learning and piety, his singular abilities and great labors, his re- markable zeal and faithfulness in the service of his Master. A great benefactor to our poor. The Rev. Mr. Noyes his life was much bound up in him." These last words read more as prophecy than as rec- ord of a past accomplished, when we look on to the next entry upon the book. It is but twenty days later. It records the death, Dec. 13th, of the Rev. Nicholas Noyes. Within three weeks the church is bereaved of both its pastors.

Mr. Samuel Fisk was called with great unanimity the next year to the church in Salem, and was or- dained on the 8th of October, 1718. He was a grand- son of Rev. John Fisk, herein before mentioned as sometime assistant to Rev. Hugh Peters, afterwards minister of Wenham and Chelmsford; was born April 6, 1689, in Braintree, where his father, Rev. Moses Fisk, was many years minister, and was grad- uated from Harvard College in 1708. He was a man of acknowledged abilities and of great energy, but the unanimity with which his ministry was welcomed at the beginning gave place in no very long time to a rising alienation on the part of a portion of his con- gregation, which grew to a protracted and bitter con- troversy,-protracted and bitter even in comparison with other church contentions, proverbial as such are for their tenacity and implacability,-many of his parishioners becoming hopelessly estranged from him, the division culminating at last in the expulsion of Mr. Fisk from his pulpit in 1735. Mr. Bentley as- cribes his loss of usefulness to high thoughts of church authority. Pamphlets of more than four hundred pages of printed matter remain in a Salem library (Athenæum) to represent the course of the correspond- ence and criticisms which grew out of the long con- test. The points involved were not chiefly theological or ecclesiastical, but consisted largely of charges brought by members of the church of misrepresenta- tion and of a want of ingenuous, truthful and frank dealing on the part of Mr. Fisk as to an unwarranted interpolation in the church records in the matter of

maintaining or discontinuing the church "lecture," an institution which had long existed, the interest in which had fallen off greatly, and the responsibility for whose decay, and close, and resumption was mu- tually bandied back and forth between the minister and the dissatisfied brethren. Mr. Fisk was also accused of arbitrarily refusing to call church meetings except such as he pleascd and when he pleased, and of assert- ing a right of control in church matters generally deemed by a very considerable part of his congrega- tion to be unauthorized and inadmissible. As to one of the issues raised, Mr. Fisk and his followers seem to have planted themselves on unassailable ground. The aggrieved brethren seem to have been a confessed minority of the church. When, therefore, this ag- grieved minority,-supposing it to be such,-first called on a neighboring church, -- the second in Bos- ton,-to come in, by its representatives, and endeavor to compose the existing difficulties, the majority de- clined to submit their case to this commission for a hearing and decision. So, when a council of four churches made a similar attempt, and again, when a yet larger and more imposing council was summoned, they simply denied the jurisdiction of each and all such ecclesiastical courts, in steadfast adherence to tbat original principle laid down at the founding of the church, in 1629, of the independence of each church, and they deuied the authority of any other church or churches to interfere in its concerns. Unless by some formal vote it had surrendered this claim of autonomy in favor of some other paramount authority as does not seem to have been claimed, or the voice of the majority was arbitrarily suppressed by the pastor, which is perhaps charged by implication, it is difficult to see by what right the majority of this church and congregation were dispossessed of their meeting-house or any of their church rights, as was done, and sanc- tioned by the General Court.

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History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 31

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