History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II, Part 177

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1672

USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II > Part 177

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In 1649 the business of tanning was begun in New- bury by Nicholas Easton, in a yard north of the Parker River Bridge, on the east side of the road, and in the same year John Bartlett appears to have been engaged in the same business. In 1658 a movement was made towards the erection of a new meeting- house, as is indicated by the appointment of a com- mittee of the town to sell to Edward Woodman twelve acres of marsh, and take pay in boards or nails for the meeting-house. It was probably finished some time in 1661, as under the date of January 28th, in that year, it is recorded that the selectmen agreed with Henry Jaques "to build a gallery in the new meet- ing-house at both ends and all along on the west side with three substantial seats all along both sides and ends; the said Henry Jaques shall fell the timber and provide all the stuff, both planks, boards, rayles, and joyces and nayles, and to bring the stuff all in place and make it for three payre of stayres and what- ever else is requisite to compleate the said gallery, for which he is to have thirty pounds in good current pay or provisions. Also that Henry Jaques shall have all the old stuffe of the old gallery in the old meeting-house. The said Henry Jaques is also to lay a floure all over the meeting-house from beame to beame, and the towne doth engage to provide joyces, boards and nayles and so forth and so forth." The new house stood south of the old one, and the old one appears to have remained in use until the new one was completed. The first house was probably not only unsubstantial in its character, but too small for the increasing number of its congregation. Under date of 1651 Johnson, in his " Wonder-working Providence," said that the town consisted of about seventy families, and that " the soules in church fellowship were about one hundred." Before 1660 the number had doubt- 'ess increased to such a number as would render such a building as they would have been likely to erect at

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HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

the time of the first settlement altogether too small for convenient use.

In 1663 the Newbury meeting-house was the scene of that extraordinary exhibition by Lydia Wardwell of her naked person during divine service. For this ! offense she was carried before the court at Salem and sentenced to be whipped and to pay the costs of court, amounting to twelve shillings and sixpence. Her maiden name was Perkins, and she was the wife of Eliakim Wardwell, of Hampton. This fanatieal aet was justified by George Bishop in his " New England Judged " as follows :

" His wife, Lydia, being a young and tender chaste woman, seeing the wickelness of your priests and rulers to her husband, was not at alt offended with the truth, but as your wickedness abounded, so she withdrew and separated from your church at Newbury, of which she was sometimes a member, and being given up to the leading of the Lord, after she had been often sent for to come thither, to give a reason for such a separation, it being at length upon her, in the consideration of their miserable condition, who were thus blinded with ignorance and persecution, to go to them, and as a sign to them she went in (though it was exceeding hard to her modest and shame-faced disposition) naked amongst them, which put them into such a rage, instead of consideration, they soon laid hands on her, and to the court at Ipswich led her, where, without law, they condemned her to be tyed to the fence post of the fav- ern, where they sat, and there sorely lashed her with twenty or thir ty cruel stripes. And this is the discipline of the church of Newbury, in New England, and this is their religion, and their usage of the handmaid of the Lord, who, in a great cross to her natural temper, came thus among them, a sign, indeed, significatory enough to then, and suitable to their state, who, umler the vision of religion, were thus blended into cruel persecution."

Rev. James Noyes, the assistant of Rev. Thomas Parker, having died October 22, 1656, Rev. John Woodbridge was engaged in his place, the town agreeing to pay him thirty pounds for the half-year beginning on the 25th of September, 1663. Mr. Noyes was born in Chouhlerton, England, in 1608, and was a cousin of Rev. Thomas Parker, his mother having been a sister of Rev. Robert Parker, the father of Thomas. He studied at Oxford, and after preach- ing a short time came to New England in the same ship with his cousin, and was settled in Newbury as his assistant in 1635. Mr. Parker said of him,-

" My worthy colleague in the ministry of the Gospel was a man of singular qualifications, in pety excelling, an implacable chemy to all lereste and schism, and a most able warriour against the same. Ile was of a reaching and ready apprehension, a large invention, a most pro- found judgment, a rare and tenacions and comprehensive memory, fixed and unmovable in his grounded conceptions, sure in words and speech without rashness, gentle and mild in all his expressions, without all passion or provoking language. And as he was a notable disputant, so he would never provoke hus adversary, saving by the short knocks and heavy weight of argument. He was of so loving and compassumate and hunble carriage that I Iulieve never were any acquainted with him but did not desire the continuance of his society and acquaintance. Hr HAN remodule for truth, and in defence thereof had no respect to any per- sons. He was a most excellent counsellor in doubts, and could strike at a hair's breadth bke the Benjamites, and expedite the entangled out of the briars. He was courageons in dangers, aml still was apt to believe the best, and make fair weather in a storm. He was much honored and esteemed in the country, and his death was much hewailed. I think he may be reckoned among the greatest worthies of the age."

Not long after the death of Mr. Noyes serious diffi- culties arose in the church, owing to differences of opinion concerning church government. Mr. Parker

was strongly inelined towards the Presbyterian form and his opinions were approved by many of the lead -. 1 .la ing men among his people. On the other hand, quite as many of the church opposed his views, and the result was a controversy which threw a cloud over the later years of Mr. Parker's ministry. It is not neces-ary in this narrative to give a full history of the controversy, which did not come to a termination until 1672. Both Mr. Parker and Mr. Noyes had en- tertained the same views for many years, and it is not a violent presumption that only the sweet and loving spirit of Mr. Noyes prevented the out- break during his life. It was not until after Mr. Woodbridge had become the assistant of Mr. Parker that the real trouble began. Mr. Woodbridge enter- tained the same views as Mr. Parker, and, having Place been engaged from year to year, it was voted by the town, May 21, 1670, that "the order in the town- book that gives Mr. Woodbridge sixty pounds a year for his preaching is made void." 1 Bart

Mr. Woodbridge was the son of Rev. John Wood- bridge, of Stanton, in England, and was born in 1613. IFis mother was a sister of Rev. Thomas Parker, and he came with his uncle and his younger brother, Benjamin, to New England in 1634, and mar- ried, in 1639, Merey, daughter of Governor Thomas Dudley, and was ordained September 16, 1644, the first minister of Andover. He was the first town clerk of Newbury, and served until 1638. In 1647 he re- turned to England. lle had eleven children, who grew to manhood and womanhood, three of whom- John, Timothy and Benjamin-became clergymen, the two former being graduates of Harvard. In 1663 he returned to New England, and preached, as already stated, in Newbury seven years, He contin- ned to live in Newbury, acting as magistrate of the Massachusetts colony and justice of the peace, and there died, March 17, 1695. Woodbridge's Island takes its name from him, and in 1665 a town in New Jersey, settled by emigrants from Newbury, was called Woodbridge in his honor.

Mr. Woodbridge had eleven children-Sarah, born in Newbury, June 7, 1640, and died in 1690, prob- ably unmarried ; Lucy, born in Newbury, March 13, 1642, and married first Simon, son of Governor Brad- street, and afterwards Capt. Daniel Epps, of Ipswich, and died June 18, 1710, at the house of her son, John Bradstreet, in Medford ; John, born in Newbary in 16444, graduated at Harvard in 1664, settled in the min- istry at Killingworth, Conn., 1666, ordained in 1669, installed at Weathersfiehl in 1679, married Abigail, daughter of Gov. Win. Leete, of Connecticut, and died Nov. 13, 1691 ; Benjamin, born probably in Andover, in 1645, married first, June 3, 1672, Mary, daughter of Rev. John Ward, of Haverhill, and second, in August. 1686, Deborah. widow of llenry Tarleton, and daughter of Daniel Cushing, of Hingham, settled in the ministry at New Castle, N. H., Bristol, R. I., Windsor, Conn., and Medford Mass., at which last

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NEWBURY.

place he died January 15, 1709-10 ; Thomas, born in England in 1648, who married a daughter of Paul White, and died March 30, 1691 ; Mary, born in Eng- land, married Samuel Appleton, of Ipswich, and died June 9, 1712 ; Timothy, born in England Janu- ary 13, 1656, a graduate of Harvard in 1675 ; Dor- othy, born in England in 1650, and died in New Eng- land, in 1723 ; Anne, born in England in 1653, and died in Massachusetts, February 28, 1701 ; Joseph, born in England in 1657, married Miss Martha Rogers, May 20, 1686, and died Sept. 17, 1726 ; Martha, born in England 1660, married, probably, Thomas Ruggles, and died in 1738.

On the 20th of October, 1675, Rev. John Richard- son was ordained as assistant to Mr. Parker, in the place of Mr. Woodbridge. His salary was to be " one hundred pounds a year, and each person was to pay one-half of his share in merchantable barley, and the rest in merchantable pork, wheat, butter or Indian corn, or such pay paid unto Mr. Richardson to his satisfaction, as every person may understand upon in- quiry of Tristram Coffin, who was chosen in April the town's attorney to gather Mr. Richardson's rates, and in case the said Tristram Coffin shall negleet his trust herein, he shall pay forty shillings fine to the select- men."

But Mr. Richardson was not long associated with Mr. Parker, for the latter died on the 24th of April, 1677, in his eighty-second year. Mr. Parker, was as has been stated in an earlier part of this narrative, the son of Robert Parker, and born in Wiltshire, Eng- land in 1595. Rev. Robert Parker was one of the chief dissenting clergymen in the time of Bishop Ban- croft, whose writings were especially feared. In the year 1598 Bishop Bilson published a work entitled, " A survey of Christ's suffering and descent into Hell," in which he maintained that Christ at His death actually visited the regions of the damned. Mr. Parker in 1604, in answer to the Bishop, published a learned work, entitled "De Descensu Christi ad In- fernos." In 1607 he published another learned work against symbolizing with Antichrist in the ceremonies, but especially against the sign of the cross. In con- sequence of this publication he was driven into exile to avoid arrest, and went to Holland, carrying with him his son Thomas, who had been obliged to leave Oxford in consequence of his father's troubles. Mr. Parker went first to Amsterdam and then to Dyesburg, a fortified town of the Netherlands, where he died in 1614, leaving his son nineteen years of age. In looking over the career of this man, it is not difficult to discover the source of those views of church government entertained by his son. Nor is it easy to believe that the son experienced any change in those views, or that they were not entertained from the first day of his settlement. It is quite likely that if Mr. Noyes had lived until the close of Mr. Parker's pastorate, the unfortunate controversy which for a time alienated pastor and people would not have

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occurred. Mr. Parker was an old man at the time, suffering from a loss of eyesight and from an impair- ment of all those qualities of mind and heart which had made him a skillful manager of church affairs, and more than all from the loss of the guiding hand of Mr. Noyes, so long his wise and moderate coun- selor. With the advent of Mr. Woodbridge, who, though he was declared by Cotton Mather " a great reader, a great scholar, a Christian and a pattern of goodness," was more pronounced and emphatic in the statement of his convictions, the difficulty which had long been kept slumbering came to an inevitable head.

In 1678 trade on the Merrimac River was enlarging, and Richard Dole, of Newbury, was granted lands for a wharf. In 1679 a third grist-mill was provided for, and the town granted to John Emery, Jr., "twelve acres of land on the west side of Artichoke River, pro- vided he build and maintain a corn-mill to grind the town's corn from time to time, and to build it within one year and a half after the date hereof." In the same year the selectmen chose fourteen tithingmen, who for certain purposes were to have charge of a certain number of families. These purposes are desig- nated in the following copy of instructions to Abraham Merrill, a tithingman, taken from Coffin's " History of Newbury " :

" To Deacon Abraham Merrill :

" At a meetingof the Selectmen, March 31st, 1679, you are hereby re - quired to take notice that you are chosen according to court order by the Selectmen to be a tithing man, to have inspection into and look over these families, that they attend the publick worship of God, and do not break the Sabbath; ani, further, you are to attend as the court order declares. The names of the families are Elward Woodmen, Junior, Sam - nel Bartlet, Richard Bartlet, Abel Pilsbury, John Stevens, Christophe r Bartlet, Thomas Chase, Goodman Bailey, John Chase.

"By order of the Selectmen.

"ANTHONY SOMERBY, Recorder."

The law under which these appointments were made was passed at the session of the General Court held on the 23d of May, 1677, and is as follows :

"This court, being desirous to prevent all occasions of Complaint re- ferring to the Prophanation of the Sabbath, and as an Addition to former Lawes,

" Do Order and Enact that all the Lawes for Sanctification of the S.th - bath, and preventing the prophaning thereof, be twice in the year, viz., in March and September, publickly Read by the Minister or Ministers on the Lord's daye in their several respective Assemblies within this juris- diction, and all people by him cautioned to take heed to the observance thereof. And the Selectmen are hereby Ordered to see to it there be one man appointed to inspect the ten Families of their Neighbours, which Tithing man or men shall and hereby have power, in the absence of the Cousta- ble, to apprehend all Sabbath-breakers, disorderly Tipplers, or such as keep Licensed Houses, or others that shall suffer any disorder in their Houses on the Sabbath day or evening after, or at any other time, and to carry them before a Magistrate or other Authority, or commit to Prison, asany Constable may do, to be proceeded with according to Law.

"And for the better putting a restraint and securing Offenders that shall in any way transgress against the Laws on the Sabbath, either in the Meeting-House, by any abusive carriage or misbehaviour, by making uny noise, or otherwise, or during the day time, being laid hold on by any of the Inhabitants, shall, by the said person appointed to inspect the Law, be forthwith carried forth and put into a Cago in Boston, which is appointed to be forthwith by the Select Men set up in the Market-place, and in such other Towns as the County Courts shall appoint, there to remain till Authority shall examine the person offending, and give order

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HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

for bis punishment, as the matter may require according to the Laws re- lating to the Sabbath."

This law and the appointment under it are quoted at length for the purpose of correcting a popular mis- conception concerning the word " tithingman," and explaining its true meaning. The word took its name rather from the manner in which the tithing- man was selected than from the nature of his office. Indeed, the precise functions of the office, as exer- cised in this country, have never been satisfactorily defined. In the Plymouth Colony the office was first mentioned in the laws of 1682 " with reference to the Indians for their better regulating and that they may be brought to live orderly, soberly and diligently." One of the provisions of these laws was that, in addition to a general overseer, "each towne where Indians doe reside every tenth Indian shall be chosen by the Court of Assistants, or said overseer yeerly, whoe shall take the inspection, care and oversight of his nine men and present theire faults, etc." A tithingman was simply a tenth man. A Saxon tithing consisted of ten families, and ten tithings made up the "hundred." In the Plymouth Colony in the management of the Indians, and in the Massachusetts Colony in enforcing an observance of the Sabbath, it was found convenient to give every tenth man the oversight of the other nine, and consequently he was called a tithingman. After the union of the Plymouth and Massachusetts Colonies, laws were passed requiring the election of tithingmen and making them practically constables to inspect and regulate licensed houses as well as to preserve the peace and good order on the Sabbath. After a lapse of years the office gradually lapsed into that of a sort of ecclesiastical coustable with jurisdic- tion and powers limited to Saturday evening and the Sabbath. Thus the name was retained after the method of election was changed and the popular mind became confused as to its real significance.

The few next years, up to the close of the year 1686, were characterized by important and stirring events. The trials of Caleb Powell and Elizabeth Morse for witchcraft cover the only instances in which the people of Newbury are recorded as having been drawn into the prevailing extraordinary delusion. William Morse, the husband of Elizabeth, was tho supposed victim, but Powell was acquitted, and Mrs. Morse, after condemnation to death, was reprieved. The Rev. John Hale, of Beverly, states that :

" She being reprieved, was carried to her own home, and her linsband (who was esteemed a sincere and understanding Christian by those that knew him) desired some neighbour ministers of whom I was one to dis- course his wife, which we did, and her discourse was very Christian and still pleaded her innocence as to that which was laid to her charge. We did not estrem it prudence for us to pass nny definitive sentence upon one under her circumstances, yet we inclined to the more charita- ble sido. In her Just sickness sho was in much trouble and darkness of spirit, which occasioned a judicious friend to examine her strictly, whether she had been guilty of witchcraft, but she said no, but the ground of her trouble was some impatient und passionate speeches and uctions of her while in prison, upon account of her suffering wrong- fully, whoroby she hud provoked the Lord by putting contempt upon

his word. And in fine she sought her pardon and comfort from God in Cbrist and dyed, so far as I understand, praying to and resting upon God in Christ for salvation."

In reviewing the terrible delusion of witchcraft, of which so many innocent persons were the victims, the only consoling reflection is that the persons con- demned so thoroughly shared the universal belief that they may themselves have come to the convic- tion at last that they were the unconscious instru- ments of the devil, and, in accordance with the command of the Scriptures, "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live," deserved the punishment they were about to suffer.

In 1682, a Baptist Church was formed in Newbury, of which George Little, Philip Squire, Nathaniel Cheney, William Sayer, Benjamin Morse, Edward Woodman, John Sayer and Abel_Merrill were mem- bers, but how long it lived and when it died does not appear. In this and succeeding years additional grants of lands for the construction of wharves on the Merrimac were made, and the business interests along the banks of that river steadily increased. In 1686 a division of common lands was made. The order of the town passed in 1642, which has been quoted, declared the ownership of the commons to be possessed by the ninety-one freeholders of the town at that time and their heirs and assigns. All other inhabitants of the town were excluded, and in the proposed division those who were not included with- in the scope of the order now claimed a right. After a prolonged agitation on the subject, on the 5th of May, 1686, a committee of seventeen was chosen to consider and report a proper method of division, and on the 20th of October the committee made a re- port, which was adopted by the town :

" That the upper commons be divided in manner following : namely, the six thousand acres, one-half of them in quantity and quality, be divided among the freeholders ; to every frocholder a like shure, and the other half of said commons be divided among all such inhabitants of this towne and freeholders as have paid rates two years last past, proportion- able to what each man paid by rate to the minister's rato in the year 1685.

"And that abont eleven hundred acres of the lower commons be di- vided according to the above method and luid out into five general pas- tures and so forth, and the rest of the commons to be divided and laid into wood lots according to the above division and same rule."

A committee, consisting of Daniel Pierce, Stephen Greenleaf, John Emery, Joseph Pike, Tristram Cothin, Nathaniel Clark and Henry Short, was chosen to divide the lots. Before the division was made it was agreed that Indian River should be free as far as the tide flows for the passage of boats, and that every freeholder shall draw his lot as his name was entered in the town-book. It was further agreed :

" That the persons concerned in the rate livision of the uppercommons shall be drawne into four companys, then one man of each company shall draw in the name and for the said company, and he that draweth figure one that company shall have theyr proportions first. Then every man's nanır of every company and the damos of the four companys shull be putt into four several baggs, and the committre chosen to lay out the said rato proportion shall take a paper out of the bagg belonging to the first company, and that man's namo that first comes to hand shull bave

The

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NEWBURY.

his lott first laid out, and so all the rest successively, until the whole be laid out and so for the rest of the companyes."

The division began next to the farm of John Ger- rishi, at the line of the town of Bradford, and the land was laid out by Tristram Coffin and Henry Short. Afterwards a committee was chosen to divide the eleven hundred acres of the lower commons into five general pastures, and "to measure the old towne common and proportion it to the old towne men, and proportion the rest of the land adjacent to the rest of the inhabitants in the same proportion."

In 1687 a committee was appointed "to treat withi Peter Cheney about setting up a corne-mill and a fniling-mill upon the Falls River." Both in the Massachuetts and Plymouth Colonies this seems to have been about the date of the introduction of the domestic manufacture of cloth and consequently the erection of fulling-mills. It is believed that before that time English cloth was chiefly used, a belief somewhat confirmed by the absence of spinning-wheels in the early inventories, and by the mention of large supplies of English materials for clothing and other domestic uses.

In all these years the town had been gradually ex- tending to the westward until in 1685 a very consider- able part of its population occupied that section. Its interests had become so distinct from those of the older part of the town, and the distance from the church was so great, that on the 10th of March, 1684, its inhabitants sent the following petition to the town :

" To the town of Newbury the humble request of some of the inbabit- ants of this town doe desiro and entreat that you would be pleased to grant us your consent, approbation and assistance in geting some help in the ministry amongst us, by reason that we due live soe remote from the means, great part of us, that we cannot with any comfort or con- venience come to the publick worship of God ; neither can our families be brought up under the means of grace as Christians ought to bee, and which is absolutely necessary uoto salvation ; therefore we will humbly crave your loveing compliance with us in this our request."

No definite action appears to have been taken by the town on this petition, but the motives which in- spired it became only the stronger with the lapse of time, as will be seen hereafter in this narrative. In 1690 a second request was made of the town, and a committee of eight persons was chosen to consider the subject, who reported :

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History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II, Part 177

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed Publication date: 1888 Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & Co. Number of Pages: 1672

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1672