History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 38

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 38

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EPISCOPAL : GRACE .- A second Episcopal Church was organized iu the year 1858, nnder a movement arising in St. Peter's Church, the rector of St. Peter's, Rev. Dr. Leeds, remarking in the Jour- nal of the Diocese of 1859: "The completion of the fifth quarter-century in the history of St. Peter's was celebrated by laying the corner-stone of another church edifice, to be known by the name of Grace Church." The new church, a Gothic frame structure, was consecrated June 2, 1859. The Rev. George D. Wildes was the first rector, his pastorate covering eight years, 1859-67. Rev. Joseph Kidder succeeded Mr. Wildes in 1868, and remained until July 1, 1870, when the present rector, Rev. James P. Franks, suc- ceeded him. The sixty communicants with which this

church began had increased, at the twenty-fifth anni- versary of its consecration, to one hundred and fifty. The architecture of the church remains as it was at the beginning.

NEW CHURCH SOCIETY (oftener designated in popular speech as the Church of the New Jerusalem, or Swedenboryian Church) .- As early as 1840 those in- terested in the doctrines of the New Jerusalem met at the homes of different individuals and read the writings of the church. In 1845 Miss Mary Eveleth having joined the little band, became their reader for Inost of the two or three following years; after that Mr. Joseph Ropes was for a few years their leader. It was in 1861 that meetings began to be held in the hall of the building which had been General H. K. Oliver's school-house, and which was erected by him, on Federal Street. At that time Rev. Warren Burton was their leader. Here a Sunday-school was first gathered. From this place a removal took place to Creamer Hall, on Essex Street, and on the 25th of January, 1863, the society was instituted by Rev. T. B. Hayward, who preached for the congregation two years, or more. Services were afterwards held in the Howard Street Church and in Hamilton Hall. Rev. Abiel Silver was minister from 1867 to 1869. The society was incorporated July 13, 1869. That year a lot of land was purchased for a church. On this land the present church was built, and dedicated April 18, 1872. Rev. L. G. Jordan was the minister from June 6, 1869, to November 1, 1870. Rev. A. F. Frost began to preach for the society in 1872, but was not installed as pastor till January 25, 1875. He re- signed June 30, 1879. Rev. Mr. Hayden followed Mr. Frost, being engaged to preach for a year. After he left, different ministers preached from one Sunday to several months each, until April 1, 1884, when Rev. Duane V. Bowen was invited to become the minister of the society. The invitation was accepted, and he remains to the present time the minister. Rev. Mr. Bowen was ordained in the Unitarian ministry in 1873, and had served parishes of that denomination before embracing the faith of the New Church and identifying himself with that body. In making the change he did not sever the bonds of friendship and sympathy by which he had been held in earlier fellowship with the communion of which he had been a member. Of the fifty-nine original members of the New Church Society, twenty have removed from the city, and fourteen have been " removed to the spiritual world," the speech of this church not recognizing such translation as death.

CALVARY BAPTIST CHURCH .- On the 21st of Oc- tober, 1871, ninety members of the Central Baptist Church received letters of dismission from that church, for the purpose of constituting a new church, upon a somewhat different basis from that on which the par- ent church existed, believing " that the house of God should be free to all, without the sale or letting of pews, or the granting to a worldly proprietorship a vote on

HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

any interest pertaining to the church." They met in the old Howard Street Chapel October 24, 1871, and organized under the name of "The Calvary Baptist Church of Salem." Rev. S. H. Pratt, who had come in their company from the Central Church, was chosen their pastor. The congregation transferred itself to Mechanic Hall for a time. Coming to feel the need of a church home of their own, Mrs. John Dwyer gave them land on which to build, and they proceeded to set up their meeting-house on the corner of Essex and Herbert Streets, meantime worshipping at the old " Bethel" on the latter street, till the new church should be ready. With much effort, their means not being abuudant, they carried the enterprise through and dedicated their house on the 17th of November, 1873. On the 17th day of March, 1874, the church organized as a corporation under the general statutes of Massachusetts ; there was no society distinct from the church, the church itself being incorporated. "The seats are utterly free, no price or rent being charged for any seat, and no seat being assigned to or claimable by any person, and all seats being open to the first comer ; . the expenses are met by voluntary weekly offerings." Rev. Mr. Pratt resigned his charge May 4, 1873. For nearly a year they had the services of Mr. E. B. Andrews, a student of New- ton Seminary, and since professor both in Newton and in Brown University-services which were of great value beyond his religious ministry, as he worked strenuously to raise the money for the building of the church. Twice they invited him to become their pas- tor and twice their earnest call was declined. Rev. D. H. Taylor was ordained their second pastor Sep- tember 9, 1874. He continued in the pastorate till January 12, 1877. On the 27th of the following March (1877) Rev. William A. Keese, then settled in Ells- worth, Me., was invited to take pastoral charge of the church, and accepting, began his labors May 6th, and resigned May 26, 1883, at the end of a ministry of six years. Rev. Samuel H. Emery, the present pastor, was settled January 2, 1884. He was ordained December 5, 1877, and had been pastor of a church in Bellows Falls, Vt., previous to his settlement in Salem.

Seamen's Society : Seaman's Bethcl .- When Salem's prosperity rested largely upon commerce, and the town was not without a considerable population of seafarers and their families, some transient, some res- ident, they were regarded by the Salem churches as a class entitled to special missionary effort. In Aug- ust, 1824, a " Bethel " was opened in a store at the head of Derby Wharf as a place of worship, aud Rev. Eleazer Barnard became the minister. The next year Rev. Benjamin H. Pitman succeeded Mr. Bar- nard, remaining two years ; and in 1832 Rev. Michael Carlton was appointed, and continued in this work nearly thirty years, adding, in the latter years of his ministry, many of the offices of a minister at large and of a dispenser of the charities of the rich among the poor to his pastoral and missionary duties among

sailors. A chapel was built on Herbert Street, and from its top the " Bethel " flag long waved an invita- tion to all who would come, seamen and others, to worship. As the number of seamen has diminished in Salem, the special mission work in behalf of sailors has become desultory and intermittent at times. Rev. Benjamin Knight, a Baptist clergyman living in Salem, rather past middle life, took up and carried on the same miscellaneous work which Mr. Carlton had pur- sued, that of colporteur, preacher and pastor to seamen, agent of the charitable in seeking out and relieving cases of want, and advocate of temperance --- in short, the work of a minister at large. Since Mr. Knight's death two organizations, not altogether friendly to each other, have grown out of his mission, both assumiug the name of " Bethel " societies, and seeking to perpetuate a ministry to the neglected and the unchurched like that in which he labored so many years. Neither has a settled pastor. One worships in the same building in which Mr. Knight preached, at the head of Phillips Wharf, the other (lately incor- porated) on Derby Street, opposite the Bertram Home for Aged Men.

CHURCH OF THE COLORED PEOPLE .- Another mission enterprise was started by the Salem churches about sixty years ago, in 1828, to provide a separ- ate place of worship for the colored people of the town, it being their own desire to have a church home by themselves, in which they would be free from unpleasant and intrusive observation, and have a more perfect enjoyment of ministra- tions of their own selection, and more congenial to their feelings and religious habits. A chapel was built, in 1828, on South Street, afterwards known as Mill Street, and still later as (new) Washington Street, the chapel being removed when Washington Street was extended up the hill. This little congre- gation called itself at first the " Union Bethel Church." It had James P. Lewis as a missionary in 1831. It several times changed its name. In 1839 it was “ Wes- leyan Methodist," in 1842 " Zion's Methodist," or " Equal Rights Zion's Methodist Church " (unless this was a branch of the former), in 1845 again the "Wesleyan Methodist Connection in America," iu 1854 "First Free-Will Baptist Society." In 1839 John N. Mars was its pastor ; in 1845, Samuel Palmer; in 1855, Rev. James H. Marston. It had many reorgau- izatious. Its light sometimes flickered, sometimes seemed to have gone out. Messrs. Osgood & Batchel- der date its extinction within the year 1861. The Af- rican Methodist Episcopal Church has several times within the last eight years sent preachers from its Conference to undertake a revival of public worship among the colored people, and the establishment of a church. Rev. Jacob Stroyer and Joseph Taylor have each continued efforts to this end for two or three years at a time, but unsuccessfully. The population in whose interest the experiment has been tried is es- timated at about three hundred souls in all. Many

SALEM.

of these are already respected members of other churches, satisfied with their church relations. The desire of many colored persons, seusitive to surround- ing opinion, and constrained by a self-respecting re- serve to have their worship apart and by themselves, has been well understood and sympathized with, and they have been liberally aided in their attempts to maintain their own separate meetings on Sunday. But it would appear to be wiser, hereafter, to seek their absorption in the other churches, where, it may be hoped, time and a growing appreciation of the spirit of true Christianity will make real the abolish- ment of all distinctions of class and race.

MORMON .- For a few years a church of the "Latter- Day Saints," better known as Mormons, existed in Salem. It was organized January 1, 1842. Ten years before, Joseph Smith, the "prophet " of that sect, came to Salem, with associates, and propagated its tenets, not unsuccessfully ; in 1843 it had one hundred members. Erastus Snow remained here as its elder for a year or two. But in 1844, when all the pilgrims of this order were setting their faces towards Nauvoo, in Illinois, their sacred city, the church in Salem obeyed the general impulse and made a clean exodus from among the aliens.

DEAF MUTES .- A small congregation of deaf mutes organized themselves into a religious society in 1876, and have had Rev. Philo W. Packard, one of their number, as their only. pastor. They number about twenty persons. Mr. Packard was born in Boston February 25, 1838.

LUTHERAN SWEDISH CHURCH .- One finds the sim- ple record in the list of Salem churches for 1884-85 that " a Lutheran Swedish Church was organized June 15, 1884-no pastor-John Lonn its president. Its place of meeting, Central, corner of Charter Street."

For many years a body of believers, classed as "Spiritualists," numerically undefined and undefin- able, at times sufficiently organized for regular meet- ings, have had sessions from Sunday to Sunday for such communion, utterances and conferences as usu- ally characterize their congregations. Those who at- tend such gatherings are few compared with the num- ber of those who entertain opinions more or less con- current with theirs, but to whom they are private speculations, or a private faith, calling for no public and conventional proclamation, or separate and per- manent organization.

The principal authorities consulted :

Rev. C. W. Upham's "Sermon at the Dedication of the First Church," November 16, 1826 ; "Second Century Lecture," 1829 ; "Address at the Rededication of the First Church," December 8, 1867.

Rev. William Beutley's " Description of Salem " ("" Mass. Hist. Col.," vol. vi., year 1799).

Rev. J. B. Felt's "Annals of Salem," two vols. ; Felt'e " Ecclesiastical History of New England," vol. i.

Hon. Daniel A. White's "'N. E. Congregationaliem," 1861.

Lectures by Judge White respecting the "Founders of Salem and the First Church."

"Papers Relating to Rev. Samnel Skelton," by William P. Upham, Esq. (".Hist. Col. of Essex Inst.," vol. xiii.).

" Genealogy of the Marsh Family," Skelton.

"Sketch of Salem," by Charles Osgood aud Henry M. Ratchelder, 1879.

" Address before the Essex Bar Association," hy IIon. Wm. D. North- end, president of the association, 1885.

"Discourse on the First Centennial Anniversary of the Tabernacle Church, April 26, 1835," by Rev. Samnel M. Worcester

"Narrative of the Controversy between the Rev. Mr. Samuel Fisk, the Pastor, and a number of the Brethren of the First Church of Christ in Salem," 1735; "Narrative of the Proceedings of the Ecclesiastical Council, couvened iu Salem in 1734," 1735 ; other published pamphlets relating to the above controversy, bonnd together in a volume in the library of the Salem Athenaum.

"Brief History of Settlement of Third Church in Salem, 1769 and of the Ecclesiastical Council of 1784," by Rev. Dr. Nathaniel Whitaker.

" Correspondence in Relation to the Third Church of 1735."

" First Ceutenary of the North Church," 1872.

"Semi-Centennial Sermon " hy Rev. Robert C. Mills, D.D., First Bap- tist Church.

" Semi-Centennial Address on the Fiftieth Anniversary of Dedication of the Universalist Meeting-house and Installation of Rev. Edward Turner," 1859.

" Manual of Crombie Street Church."

" Manual of Central Baptist Church."

" Historical Sketch of Calvary Baptist Church," by Rev. Willlam A. Keese, in Report to the Salem Baptist Association, 1883.

[In Library of Boston Athenaeum " B. 76, Sermone No. 71/2."] A tract nf six pages ; its title page, in part, " A Direction for a Publick Profession in the Church Assembly after the Private Examination of the Elders " [much referred to in the discussion between Dr. S. M. Worcester and Judge D. A. White respecting the covenant and confession of the Salem Church adopted in 1629].

" Reports of the Salem Society of Deaf Mutes, 1876, 1881, 1886."

" Roger Williams," article by Porter C. Bliss in "Johnson's Encyclo- pædia."

Sewell's " History of the Qnakers."

Spragne's "Anuals of the American Pulpit."

Morton's " New England's Memorial," editions DI 1826 (Davis'), and of 1855 (Cong. Pub. Soc.).

Drake's " History of American Biography."

Savage's " Genealogical Dictionary."

Barry'e "History of Massachusetts."

Arnold's " History of Rhode Island."

Palfrey's " History of New England."

"Salem Directories."

CHAPTER III.

THE COMMERCIAL HISTORY.

BY CHARLES S. OSGOOD.

SALEM may justly be proud of her commercial his- tory. No other seaport in America has such a won- derful record. Flying from the mast of a Salem ship the American flag was first carried into the ports be- yond the Cape of Good Hope. Her vessels led the way from New England to the Isle of France and In- dia and China, and were the first from this country to display the American flag and open trade at St. Pe- tersburg and Zanzibar and Sumatra, at Calcutta and Bombay, at Batavia and Arabia, at Madagascar and Australia, and at many another distant port. Well may she proudly inscribe on her city seal Divitis Indice usque ad ultimum sinum.

The colonists, in the War of the Revolution, were almost destitute of ships of war. They were engaged

HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

in a struggle with one of the most powerful maritime nations, without the means to cope with their enemy on the high seas. Their own commerce was ruined, and it was essential to their success that provision be made for foreing the commerce of Great Britain to suffer in common with them, the fortunes and vicissi- tudes of war. Boston, New York, and the larger sea- ports, were occupied and nearly ruined by the enemy, and the main reliance of the country was on the ship- ping of Salem and the neighboring towns of Beverly and Marblehead.

The merchants of Salem at this erisis showed that the resolution passed in town meeting June 12, 1776, that " if the Honorable Congress shall for the Safety of the United American Colonies declare them inde- pendent of the Kingdom of Great Britain, we will solemnly engage, with our lives and fortunes, to sup- port them in the measure," was no meaningless phrase- ology or idle boast.

They turned their vessels into men of war, and built new ones for the service, equipped them with eannon, manned them with gallant seamen and sent them out to meet Great Britain on the deep. During this contest there were sent out from this port at least one hundred and fifty-eight vessels, manned by sev- eral thousand brave sailors from Salem. They mounted more than two thousand guns, earrying on an average twelve or fourteen each, and captured during the war as many as four hundred and forty-five prizes.

The war ended, the merehants of Salem found them- selves in possession of many large and swift-sailing vessels which had been built for use as privateers. These being too large to be profitably employed in the eoasting trade, or on the short voyages to other ports heretofore visited by Salem ships, their owners de- termined to open to distant countries new avenues of trade and bring to Salem the products of lands lying in the remotest quarters of the globe.

There was no lack of seamen to man the vessels. The young men of the town, fresh from service on the armed ships of Salem, were eager to embark in just such ventures as a voyage to unknown countries offered. They had served with Haraden in his daring exploits off the coast of Spain, and had been with West when, in the darkness of the night, he eut his prize out of a British harbor under the guns of the enemy. What wonder that after wielding the eutlass and the board- ing pike, they were not contented to put their hands to the plough or return to the daily drudgery of the work-shop. The spirit of adventure was awakened, and the more dangerous and perilous the undertaking the hetter it suited the temper of these wild and eour- ageous graduates from the deek of the privateersman.

From the close of the War of the Revolution until the embargo in 1808, Salem was at the height of her commercial prosperity. The white sails of Salem's ships were unfurled in every port of the known world and carried the fame and name of Salem to the utter- most parts of the earth.

The history of this period makes a tale which even the imaginings of romance could hardly parallel. It is crowded full of the accounts of daring adventures by brave seamen iu unknown seas, of their encounters with pirates and savage tribes, of their contests with the armed ships of France and England and of their imprisonment among the Algerines and in the prisons of France and Spain.

It was the young men of Salem that officered her ships, sailing as captains at an age when the boys of the present time are searcely over their school-days. At the beginning of one of the East India voyages of nineteen months, neither the eaptain (Nathaniel Sils- bee), nor his first mate (Charles Derby), nor his sec- ond mate (Richard J. Cleveland), was twenty years of age, and yet these boys earried ship and cargo safely to their destination, with imperfeet mathematical in- struments and with no eharts but of their own mak- ing, and returned with a cargo which realized four or five times the amount of the original capital. With no power to communicate with home, the success of the undertaking was largely in the hands of these youthful captains. Their duty was not ended when the ship arrived safely in port, for upon their judg- ment and sagacity in buying and selling depended the profits of the voyage.

In those early days, when a vessel left Salem har- bor, there was often nothing heard from her until af- ter the lapse of a year or more she would eome sailing baek again. To-day the earth is girdled with the tele- graph, and the arrival of a ship in the foreign harbor ean be known at home almost within an hour of her reaching port. Then, foreign priees were unknown and the result of a voyage might be splendid suecess or ruinous disaster; now, a voyage is merely a passage from port to port with the market ascertained before- hand at either end.

When Captain Jonathan Carnes set sail for Suma- tra, in 1795, on his secret voyage for pepper, nothing was heard from him until eighteen months later, he entered with a eargo of pepper in bulk, the first to be so imported into this eountry, and which sold at the extraordinary profit of seven hundred per cent. This uncertainty which hung over the fate of ship and eargo lent a romantie interest to these early voyages which this age, with its telegraph and steamship, has destroyed.

The lower part of the town, in the days of Salem's commerce, was full of bustling activity. The wharves were erowded with vessels discharging their eargoes, gathered from all nations, or loading for another ven- ture across the seas. Sailors fresh from the distant Indies were chatting on the street corners with eom- panions about to depart thither, or were lounging about the doors of the sailor boarding-houses with that indescribable air of disdain for all landsmen which seems always to attach to the true rover of the seas. They were looked upon by the younger por- tion of the community with that curiosity which is so

SALEM.

near akin to awe, with which we regard those about to start upon, or who have just returned from some un- commonly perilous undertaking.

The shops were full of strange and unique articles brought from distaut lands. The parrot screamed at the open door and in the back shop the monkey and other small denizens of foreign forests gamboled at will, sometimes escaping to the neighboring house- tops, much to the delight of the small children who gathered to watch their capture with upturned faces and expressions of intense interest in the result of the chase. Derby Street in those days was well worth a visit, if only for the suggestions of foreign lands that met the eye on every hand.

Salem at that time was one of the principal points for the distribution of foreign merchandise, over eight million pounds of sugar being among the im- ports of the year 1800. The streets about the wharves were alive with teams loaded with goods for all parts of the country. It was a busy scene with the coming and going of vehicles, some from long distances, for railroads were then unknown and all transportation must be carried on in wagons and drays. In the taverns could be seen teamsters from all quarters sit- ting around the open fire in the chilly evenings, dis- cussing the news of the day or making merry over potations of New England rum, which Salem in the good old times manufactured in abundance.

All this has changed. The sail-lofts where on the smooth floor sat the sail-makers, with their curious thimbles fastened to the palms of their hands, busily stitching the great white sheets of canvas that were to carry many a gallant ship safely through storm and tempest to her destination in far-distant harbors, and that were to be reflected in seas before unvexed by the keel of an American vessel, are deserted or given over to more prosaic uses, the ship-chandlers' shops are closed and the old mathematical instrument maker has taken in his swinging sign of a quadrant, shut up his shop and, as if there was no further use for him here, has started on the long voyage from which there is no return.

The merchandise warehouses on the wharves no longer contain silks from India, tea from China, pep- per from Sumatra, coffee from Arabia, spices from Batavia, gum-copal from Zanzibar, hides from Africa, and the various other products of far-away countries. The boys have ceased to watch on the Neck for the incoming vessels, hoping to earn a reward by being the first to announce to the expectant merchant the safe return of his looked-for vessel. The foreign commerce of Salem, once her pride and glory, has spread its white wings and sailed away forever.

It remains for us to-day to gather together as well as we may the facts and incidents of this memorable epoch in the history of our city and preserve them as a precious legacy from the Salem of the past to the Salem of the future.

Although commerce has sought other ports and is 5

no longer prosecuted here, the influence of the old- time merchants, whose energy and enterprise, whose daring and far-sightedness, made such an unparal- leled chapter in the history of Salem, still lingers with us. Salem to-day owes to these men the high position she holds in the world of science. Their broad and liberal views, stimulated by contact with all nations, prepared their descendants, the Salem of to-day, for the good work which is now being carried on in our midst. Their rare and unique collection of curiosities now in the possession of the Peabody Academy of Science grows in interest each year, being one of the principal points of attraction to visitors. As such it will always remain, a perpetual monument to the far-seeing and public-spirited mer- chants and ship-masters of Salem.

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History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 38

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