History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II, Part 212

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 212

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Brief indeed was the repose of private life so de- sirable to a man so actively engaged in the conflicts of the American Revolution.

An attack of paralysis terminated the life of Governor Bartlett on May 19, 1795, in the sixty-sixth year of his age.

Bartlett performed at once the work of the scholar, eminent physician, soldier, bold patriot, organizer of a new State, jurist, Congressman, member of National Naval Committee, chief justice of New Hampshire, its President and its first Governor. Fortunate was he as the first to give his vote and signature to the Declaration of Independence. Not another American name nnites all these attributes.

TIe succeeded in every department, and was universally loved and mourned by all who knew him. As incorruptible as Washington, progressive as Jeffer- son, courageous as Starke, he was a fit type of the meu who sentineled our northern borders and lighted the beacon-fires of liberty from her mountains to the sea.

No royal Governor in wealth and capacity surpassed Wentworth ; no patriot member of the Continental Congress sacrificed more or was more impoverished than Bartlett by the awful conflict. Offered honor ease and affluence by Wentworth, he left his family, in the wilderness, and preferred death on the scaffold, if need be, for the rights of all men,-a hitherto uuattained Utopia. Therefore, countless millions in succeeding ages will honor the first signer of the greatestact of man.

Scarcely less grand than his station among the immortal signers is the record of his early life as a physician.

He first introduced Peruvian bark (quinine) in the treatment of disease and first succesfully stayed the

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IIISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

m alignant throat distemper, a fatal plague that was sweeping all before it. Ile introduced the modern treatment of fevers, and his successful experiments caused wide-spread comment regarding the old- fashioned, horrible treatment, which denied both food and cooling liquids in fevers.

The New England Medical Society, of which he was a corporate member, for such daring innovations first suspended him from membership, but within a year elected him president.

The multitudes who have since received the benefits of modern treatment, of which he was pioneer, can best appreciate the courage and greatne.s of these discoveries by a humble country physician.

He achieved greatness by his unaided genius, while the dignity and beauty of his character softened the asperities of the rugged contests in which he was suc- cessfully engaged during an entire life devoted to humanity.

As brave as he was tender, as loving as he was dar- ing, as wise as he was skillful, in honor preferring others, resigning the highest office in the gift of a State be had saved, he persisted in declining the office of United States Senator, to which he was immediately unanimously elected, and retired to private life uni- versally beloved.

Contrast the simplicity, courage and usefulness of this great man with the selfish ambitions of those who usually make history-who have slaughtered or en- slaved mankind.

The signers of the Declaration completed the great- est act of man. From the darkness of despotism, from the gloom of never-ending failure to realize human aspirations for equal rights, they looked for- ward through this Declaration, as Galileo through the first telescope, to a new heaven and a new earth of equal rights for man. The extension of suffrage, of free schools, churches, invention, have accomplished more since that period for the moral, intellectual and material advancement of man than all previous history.

The substitution of a government of choice is rapidly superseding governments of force, and the countless millions that shall come after will look upon this act and epoch as the dividing line between these opposite forms of government, and will honor increasingly the immortal signers of what shall prove a universal Magna Charta to man.

Until recently Massachusetts has taken little notice of this, her illustrious son.

The first was the gift to the Andover Theological Seminary, also to the West Newbury Church of Bartlett's honored ancestors, of duplicates of the old Liberty Bell of Philadelphia, that first proclaimed " Liberty throughout all the land, unto all the inhabi- tants thereof."

These bells, with his name thereon, were cast in honor of Josiah Bartlett by order of Mr. and Mrs. E. M. Boynton, she being a great-granddaughter.

About two acres of land in the village of Amesbury is the house-lot where Bartlett was born. It has been purchased in his honor for a public institution. The Bartlett Home for Old Ladies is nearly completed, where the shields of Massachusetts and New Hamp- shire will arch above his gentle features in marble, decorated by the flag of a republic he helped create.

A still higher honor is the completion in Europe, at an expense of $10,000, of a bronze statue presented by Jacob R. Huntington, Esq., an able and enter- prising man, the first carriage manufacturer of Ames- bury, who is himself descended from a family illus- trious in the Revolutionary struggle.

Two were Continental generals, one Governor of Connecticut and signer of the Declaration of Inde- pendence, and the list of Huntingtons who have occupied high stations, both civil and military, is too long for insertion here.

J. R. Huntington's public spirit thus associates his name forever with that of Amesbury's greatest son.

The unveiling of the statue will take place on July 4, 1888, in the presence of the New England Gover- nors and other distinguished guests. The oration by Hon. R. S. Spofford, the poem by John G. Whittier, will fittingly crown the greatest celebration of Inde- pendence Day in the annals of the ancient, patriotic and goodly town of Amesbury.

HON. MICAJAH LUNT.1

Hon. Micajah Lunt, whose portrait we give, was born in Newburyport, April 22, 1796. He was a lineal descendant of Henry Lunt who came from England and was one of the original grantees in the settlement of Newbury, in 1635, and who died there in 1662. His grandmother, wife of Abner Lunt, of Newbury, was Mirriam Coffin, a great-great-grand- daughter of Tristram Coffin, the elder of that name. His mother was a daughter of Daniel Giddings, of Ipswich, Chebacco. His father was Captain Micajah Lunt, of Newbury, to whom we might apply the trite saying, "Like father, like son," the same in name, the same in action, both merchant ship-masters, both facing their country's foes upon the seas, both mer- chants after retiring from the quarter-deck, and both eminently successful in their pursuits and lives.

The elder Micajah was one of the patriotic soldiers of the ill-fated expedition sailing from this port, in 1779, to drive the English from their lodgment on the Penobscot River, which ended in the burning of the American ships to prevent their falling into the hands of the enemy, when he, with others, found their way back, on foot, through the untrodden wilderness -- a journey of toil and suffering. Immediately after- wards we find him on the armed brig "Palias," warring upon British commerce; taking or being taken, as the chances of war were; now a prisoner

1 By George J. L. Colby.

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NEWBURYPORT.

released in Spain, and now a second time a prisoner in the West Indies, and a third time taken and thrust into an English prison in New York, and again on the twenty-gun ship " Intrepid," carrying one hun- dred and twenty men, which brought a cargo of ammunition and other military supplies from France to Baltimore. Thus he devoted four years to the serviee of his country in the "volunteer navy " (as the privateers really were) of the War of the Revolution, vexing the enemies of American Inde- pendenee.

His son Micajah was educated in our common schools and in his father's counting-room. In 1813, when but seventeen years of age, in our second struggle with the "mother country," a war for the freedom of the seas, he shipped on board the " Argus," Captain Parsous, the first letter-of-marque from this port in the War of 1812-15, which took three prizes. He was also on board the brig " Essex," of Newbury- port, of twelve guns, commanded by Captain William Nichols, when she captured the British letter-of- marque "Carrisbrook Castle," of sixteen guns, a prize of great value. At the early age of nineteen years, in 1815, he was commander of the brig "Olive," and made his first voyage to Nantz, France. It should be remembered that to be master of a ship then, was not alone to be navigator of the ship, but, also, a mer- chant trusted to sell the cargo out, and purchase the return cargo. It is the more noticeable, therefore, that such a trust and so much confidence should be placed in a person lacking two years of his majority, but he was found fully competent and was successful.

Micajah Lunt was an apt scholar, was a master as an accountant, and was often called upon by corpora- tions in which he was interested, and individuals, to unravel and make straight their puzzling accounts and records. He never failed to improve an oppor- tunity, at home or abroad, to acquire information that would qualify him for all demands of duty. So when at Nantz, finding it inconvenient not to be able to eonverse in the French, he learned the lan- guage, and became an excellent French scholar. In the same manner he made himself acquainted with the history of the countries he visited, the habits of the people, and especially the commercial possi- bilities ; all this he supplemented by extensive reading, and thereby, with his good taste, strong intellect and retentive memory, his knowledge of men and ex- perience in the world, he became one of the best eitizens, useful to the public and very interesting in private life. As a merchant he held a very high rank ; he was not long at sea before he acquired a competeney for a more extensive sphere of action on the land, and at middle life had his warehouse and his offices as a ship merehant on Ferry wharf, which was also a resort of ship-masters-retired or active- seeking his valued advice. So great was the confi- dence reposed in his discernment and judgment, that men were ready to join him in any business enter-

prises, and so successful was he, that he was one of a half-dozen men, the most wealthy citizens of New- buryport.

He was a man of large publie spirit, ever keeping in view the interests of the town, eherishing a deep love for its prosperity ; its great industries found him ever ready to lend a helping hand. He was one of the largest ship-owners and often invested with others to aid that business, which, prior to the Rebellion, was the great one in the town. Ile was the foremost man in the whaling company which, promised to do for us what it did for New Bedford. When cotton manu- factures were introduced, he invested largely in them, and for quarter of a century was president of the Bartlett Steam Mills, a large establishment for those times, giving to it his personal attention. He was for twenty years president of the Merchants' Bank; and for some ten years president of the Savings Institution, holding millions as deposits He was an early director of the Eastern Railroad, in which New- buryport held much stock. For twenty years he was president of the Marine Society, an institution for the special benefit of sea captains and their families, and donated two thousand dollars to its treasury. So he was ealled many times to offices of trust and responsi- bility in corporations in Newburyport and other towns. For politics he evinced no ambition, but he served one year in the Legislature as Senator for Essex County, almost against his wish, and declined a re-election. Still he was a firmly pronounced Whig in the days of that party, but always conservative. In religion he was liberal-an active and generous supporter of the Unitarian Church.

He was twiee married-to Hannah Gyles Mulli- ken, daughter of Samuel Mulliken, in 1826, who died in 1829 without children; and again in 1831 to Mary Johnson Coffin, daughter of Edmund Coffin, of Newbury, a lineal deseendant of Tristram Coffin, in the same degree as her husband. She survived him until June 19, 1878.

They had seven children, of whom only two sur- vived him-Edmund Sydney Lunt, of New York, and Mary Coffin, wife of E. O. Shepard, of Boston, the well-known lawyer.

Micajah Lunt always resided in Newburyport, and from 1838 dwelt in the residenee on High Street, built by Judge Edward St. Loe Livermore, father of Harriet Livermore, and there passed most happily the later days of a well-spent and beautifully rounded life, surrounded by those he loved and who loved bim, and there he died in his seventy-eighth year, Janu- ary 8, 1874.

At his burial service Rev. T. B. Fox, his former pastor and close friend, said "the best tribute to him is his remembered life, which for three-score and more years has been his daily eulogy. His thorough honesty in thought, affcetion, word and deed made him a true man in all relations. He left no shadow or stain on his memory."

1860

HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

CHAPTER CXLVII. WEST NEWBURY.

BY WILLIAM T. DAVIS.

IT is not proposed in the following sketch of West Newbury to go farther back than the incorporation of the town, except in such particulars as may be neces- sary to show the causes which led to it. Unlike that tendency to centralization which, in later times, has characterized our people, in the early days of Massa- chusetts towns, when farming interests were predom- inant, and the possession of lands was eagerly sought, the tendency of new settlements was to scatter over available territory, and here and there to build up new communities, too far from their municipal centre to be long contented with old municipal ties. As Massachusetts has been gradually throwing off its agricultural garb and assuming the character of a trad- ing and manufacturing commonwealth, the tendency to centralization has increased, until many of the small farming townships are losing their population and suffering a depreciation of their estates, which is only in a few instances checked by an overflow, from larger cities and towns, of men of culture and wealth, seeking places of health and retirement, during at least the warmer months of the year.

In the tendency of a population to spread itself over a large territory, the old town of Newbury fur- nished no exception to the general rule. The many hillsides and valleys, with which the western section of Newbury abonnded, with their stately landscapes and sunny slopes, soon tempted the settlers to seek among them their permanent homes. Pipe-Stave, Archelus, Long, Crane-Neck, Meeting-House and Ind- ian Hills, had at an early date attracted about them a population not far inferior to that of the original set- tlement. As early as 1685 these remote inhabitants of the town of Newbury, began to feel inconveniences which demanded some action for their relief. On the 10th of March in that year they presented the follow- ing petition to the town of Newbury :

" The humble request of some of the inhabitants of this town desire and intreat that you would be pleased to grant us your consent, appro- lution and assistance in getting some help in the ministry amongst 18, by reason that we due live soe remote from the means, great part of us, that wo cannot, with any comfort or convenience, come to the publick worshipof God ; neither can our families be brought up under the means of grace, as christians ought to bee, and which is absolutely neces- Bary nuto salvation; therefore, we will humbly crave your loving com- pliance with us in this, our request."

This was the first movement in the direction of the formation of a new parish, but the records of the town are silent as to any action taken on the petition. In 1688, however, a meeting-house appears to have been built at the Plains by the people of the West District, regardless of the wishes of the old parish of Newbury. This house was thirty feet square and was built at the charge of sixteen persons. It has been thought by some that this meeting-house was built in 1686, but the following extract from the will of Jo-

seph Moring, a soldier, dated November 5, 1688, seems to be conclusive that at that date the house had not been erected : "I give to the new town in Newbury twenty pounds to help build a meeting-house, if they do build one; if they do not build one, then 1 give twenty pounds toward a building or repairing the meeting-house now standing in Newbury." Again, in February, 1690, the people of that district asked the town to make some provision for a minister amongst them. The committee of the town to whom the re- quest was referred, reported "that considering the times as troublesome and the town being so much behind with Mr. Richardson's salary, the farmers and the neck men being under greater disadvantages upon many accounts, do desire and expect, if such a thing be granted, that they should have the same privilege to provide for themselves, which we think cannot condnce to peace, therefore desire the new towne to rest satisfied for the present."

At a town-meeting held on the 11th of the following month " fifteen men belonging to the west end of the town, after stating that it was well known how far they had proceeded as to a meeting-house, left two propositions with the town, one that the town would agree to support two ministers, so that one could preach at the west meeting-house, or that the town would consent to have the ministry amongst them upon their own charge, and that the town would lov- ingly agree upon a dividing line between them, that so they might know what families may now belong to the west meeting-house."

No action appears to have been taken on these propositions, and steps were taken by the parish to settle a minister without further delay. When this movement came to the knowledge of the town, it was voted at a meeting held on the 14th of July, 1691, " that understanding that several of the inhabitants of new towne are about calling Mr. (Edward) Tomp- son to be their mini-ter, the towne do manifest their dislike against it, or against any other minister whom they should call, until ye church and towne are agreed upon it, looking upon such a thing to be an intrusion upon ye church and towne."

In October of the same year a petition was pre- sented to the General Court by the west end people "to be established a people by themselves for the maintenance of the ministry among them," and in December the town voted against the grant of the petition and chose a committee to oppose it before the General Court. As may be supposed, such a disagree- ment could not long exist without arousing ill l'eel- ings on both sides. So great an excitement prevailed in consequence of the action of the town, that great bitterness of spirit was aroused, and Joseph Bayley, one of the west end men, was indicted for calling the committee appointed to consider their petition devils incarnate. It was neither the first nor the last occa- sion where a religious quarrel proved to be the most unrelenting and severe.

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WEST NEWBURY.

The first sign of yielding on the part of Newbury was exhibited at a meeting held on the 29th of December, 1692, when a committee was chosen "to enquire after a suitable person to preach to the west end and to keep school." On the 12th of May, 1693, the town voted " that Mr. John Clarke be called to assist Mr. Rich- ardson (the Newbury minister) in the work of the ministry at the west end of the towne, to preach to them one year in order to farther settlement and also to keep a grammar school."

The town, in their remonstrance against the peti- tion of the west end people, said :

" That a long difference has existed between the people of Newbury and those in the west end of the town about calling a minister, that the west end people had called Mr. Edward Tomson to preach to them with- out acquainting the minister, church or towne with their proceedings in that affair, the which, when our town did understand that they were about to bring him into town, the town being met to consider of it by their vote, did declare that they were against his coming, or any other, until the church and town were agreed ; yet they persisted in thelr design, and brought him in, and when he was come in our minister warned hiru to forbear preaching till the church and towne were agreed ; yet he presumed to set up a lecture and preach without any allowance of min- isters, church or town, which, when the church did understand, they did call him to acconut, and declared their dislike of his irregular pro- ceeding, yet he hath persisted in these irregularities to the great disturb- ance of our peace, and since, upon the request of severall of the inhab- itants of the west end of our towne, called another minister, Mr. John Clark, who hath accepted of the call, and yet there are severall who refuse to accept of him, pretending they are bound to said Toinson, which agreement they made when the rest of their neighbors were about to muke application to the town, which was since the late law was made to direct the town to call the minister."

The west end people, in their reply, requested

" the governor and council to pity and help them, to ease them of a heavy burden of travel on God's day. We have been (they said) en- deavoring above these five years to have the puldick worship of God es- tablished among us on the Lord's day for reasons such as these: The bulk of us live four miles from the ould meeting-house, some six or seven. Our number is about three hundred. Few of us have horses, and if we could get down to the ould meeting-house, it is impossible it should receive us with them, so that many lay out of doors, the house is so little. Some of us have groaned under this burden this thirty years, some grown old, some sickly, and, although we were favored with the liberty granted hy King James the second, and had erected an house to the worship of God on our own cost and charge, and acquainted the two next Justices with our intent before we built the said honse, a committee of five were appointed to come on the place ; but before they had fin- ished their work the Governor arrived, which caused them to desist. We complained to the Governor, who granted ns a protection from pay- ing to the ould meeting-house, then couutermaoded it. The towo bad a meeting-they intend to delnde us hy granting the help of a school- master at sometimes for one yeare. We believe our neighbors would be glad to see us quite tired out. We beg the honorable court to establish peace among us, a rational dividing line."

On the 5th of July, 1693,

" the towne gave in theyr votes for the choyce of a minister for the west end of the towne in order to a full settlement in the work of the ministry, and Mr. John Clarke was then chosen and uot vue vote against him."

Against this vote twenty-five persons of the west end entered their protest on the ground that they al- ready had a minister. In February, 1694, twenty pounds in money and fifty pounds in grain was voted by the town to Mr. Clark, but Mr. Clark declined, and Mr. Christopher Toppan was invited in his place. Mr. Toppan agreed to preach for a year, and the town I missed September 26, 1821.

voted to give him forty pounds in money and four contributions annually.

On the 31st of December, 1694, another concession was made by the town, and a committee of five was chosen to " draw up articles and proposals in order to setting off part of the west end of the towne as a separate parish," and on the 18th of December, 1695, five acres of land on the east side of Artichoke River and one acre of land near the west meeting-house were granted to the west inhabitants when they saw canse to remove the meet- ing-house to the place specified by the town. The final result of the long controversy was that, October 26, 1698, a church was gathered and another meeting- house built at Pipe-Stave Hill, and November 10th Samnel Belcher was ordained as its minister. Thus the first step was taken which, more than a hundred years later, led to the formation of a new town. What became of the old meeting-house on the "plain," a locality now within the limits of the city of Newburyport, is doubtful. It is probable, how- ever, that it was sold, and that the tradition that it was used as a barn is correct. Until January 28, 1824, this parish was called the Second Parish of New- bury ; but at that date, five years after the incorpora- tion of West Newbury, its name was changed by an act of the General Court to the First Parish of West Newbury.

Mr. Belcher was born in Ipswich in 1638, and grad- uated at Harvard in 1659. He served until 1714, when he removed to Ipswich, where he died the fol- lowing March.

John Tufts was ordained June 30, 1714, and served until his dismission, in 1738. 1Ie was a native of Medford, a graduate of Harvard in 1708, and died in Amesbury in August, 1750.

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History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II, Part 212

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