History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II, Part 49

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 49

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A majority of a council of neighboring ministers and churches, which had been called by the original church, with a view, if possible, to reconcile and har- monize the conflicting elements, while approving of opposer- for withdrawing and setting up a separate assembly, nevertheless expressed the opinion that he had been "negligent about examining candidates for admission to the church respecting their religious ex- periences ; " in other words, that he had opened the church door too widely and let people in too easily. Mr. Pickering probably judged them more by the rectitude of their lives and a calm expression of their hope and trust, than by a volubility of emotional and fervid utterance. The maxim that "still waters run deep" might appropriately have been adopted by him ; and perhaps he would have applauded the man who, when asked, somewhat imperatively, by an | vative ministers of that time by their strictures upon over-zealous proselyter .- Have you got religion yet ? quickly answered, "Not much to speak of."

Both parties in the controversy, however, were doubtless equally honest and sincere. A difference of temperament was probably, in part, the cause of their separation. People who were naturally enthu- siastic and emotionally susceptible were "carried away " by the preaching of Whitefield.

WHITEFIELD'S POWER AS AN ORATOR .- To judge of his public speaking from a description of it by the wise and philosophical Benjamin Franklin, who heard him address a vast out-of-door assemblage in Philadelphia, he was unquestionably gifted in a won- derful degree as a brilliant, impassioned and persua- sive orator. He was also gifted histrionically, and in pantomime especially could probably have become a star performer. Even the calm and reflective sage acknowledged himself to have been charmed and fascinated while listening to his discourse. But the magic influence was in the voice and manner of the speaker more than in the substance of the sermons. Ou reading some of them we wonder at the thought of the effect upon the bearers which tradition uniformdy as- seribes to them, and we think of the disappointment of the venerable lady, who, on perusing a printed copy of a discourse of her favorite minister, exclaimed : "They can never print that godly cone." As com- parel with Jeremy Taylor, Chalmers, or Channing, ewh materially different in style, Whitefield, in re- gard to anything like depth of thought and the afllu- core of Illustration and expression which instruct and enliven when read as well as when heard, is like the sparkling effervescence of light beer contrasted with the flavor of old and mellow wine.

Nevertheless, Whitefield was always devout, ele-

ROGERS, OF IPSWICH, IN SALEM .- Rev. Mr. Brockwell, agent of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign l'arts, wrote thus to the secretary of that organization at London :

" SALEM, Feb. 18, 1741-42.

" Rogers of Ipswich one of this Pseudo Apostles ilisplayed his talent in ye Town on Sunday ye 24th January & continued here so doing un- til ye Thursday following, when he left his auditory in charge to one Elvins a Baker, who holds forth every Thursday, and tho a fellow of consummate ignorance is nevertheless followed by great multitudes & much cried up. But I thank God, that few of my church went to hear either of them, and those yt did wholly disliked them." 1

DAVENPORT, THE FANATIC, WHO, IN HIS PRAY- ERS IN CHEBACCO, INSULTED MR. PICKERING .- In Barber's Historical Collections of Connecticut, Mr. Rogers' associate is thus portrayed : "Mr. James Davenport, of Southhold, on Long Island, who had been esteemed a pious, sound and faithful minister, now became zealous beyond measure : made a visit to Connecticut, and preached in New Haven, Brandford, Stonington, and various other places ; and went on as far as Boston. He gave an unrestrained liberty to noise and outery, both of distress and joy in time of divine service. He promoted both with all his might, raising his voice to the highest pitch, together with the most violent agitations of the body. With these he united a strange singing tone which mightily tended to raise the feelings of weak and undiscerning people, and consequently to heighten the confusion among the passionate of his hearers. This odd, dis- agreeable tuning of the voice, in exercises of devo- tion, was caught by zealous exhorters, and became a characteristic of the separate preachers. The whole

1 Essex Inst. Ilist. Coll., xvii. 251.

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sect were distinguished by this sanctimonious tone. It was Mr. Davenport's manner, when a number had cried out, and there had been great agitations of body, to pronounce them tokens of divine favor ; and what was still worse, he would pronounce those persons who were the subjects of these outcries and agitations, to be converted; or that they had come to Christ; which were gross and dangerous errors. * *

* What had still more mischievous influence than all the rest, was his undertaking to eramine his brethren in the ministry, as to their spiritual state, and publicly to decide concerning them, whether they were converted or unconverted. Some whom he had privately examined, and to all ap- pearance were of as much grace as himself, he would in his public prayers pronounce unconverted. Thus, disorder, jealousy, and confusion were sown in the churches. He represented it as a dreadful thing to hear unconverted ministers; that their preaching was worse than poison ; and he warued the people against it.

Ilis brethren remonstrated against these wild meas ures, and represented to him that he must be under the influence of a wrong spirit; but he persisted in his measures. At Charlestown, in Massachusetts, he withdrew from the communion, on the Lord's day, pretending that he had scruples as to the conversion of the minister. The Boston ministers disapproved of his conduct, and rejected him. He was complain- ed of, and brought before the General Court of Massachusetts, and was dismissed as not being of a sound mind. His conduct had a pernicious influ- ence on the people."

Still further illustrations of the semi-lunacy of some of the unbalanced Separatists of those days are fur- nished in the documents which follow :

" GREAT DISORDERS AT IPSWICH.

"From the MS. diary of Rev. Ebenezer Parkman, 1 of Westboro', Mass., in the Library of the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester :

" N. B. Great Disorders (we hear) were lately at Ipswich by means of one Woodbury who wth Mr. Gilgian of Durham has sent Letters to many Ministers of ye Province as from ye K. of K. & L. of L.'s [King of Kings and Lord of Lorde.]

" N. B. I transcribed a letter at Mr. Newman's Study from Mr. C. Wain- wright, of Ipswich to Mr. Dudley of Roxbury respecting ye Ipsw. Disor- dera in ye last month, horrible to relate. My Br. Sam1 P-o [Park- man] was present at Ipswich while some of these acts were done."

THE " DISORDERS " DESCRIBED .- The nature and character of the " great disorders " alluded to by Mr. Parkman, appear to be explained in the following extract from the diary of Rev. Samuel Chandler, of Gloucester, Mass., in which, it will be observed, he speaks of Woodbury and Gilmau :

" Ang. 20, 1746. I set out on a journey to Durham to a fast, at ye de- sire of the church there, they being under difficulty. I called upon Mr. Wise 2 [of Berwick ] by the way. We got to Durham about 10 o'clock, cloudy, rainy weather, and the people, uot much expecting any minister would come, had got into the meeting house and were praying.

" When we went into the pulpit Mr. Gilman went out and went into the pew. I began with prayer. I was under some restraint. Mr. Wise preached from John 15, 5, and concluded with prayer. In the exercise were a number, 4 or 5, that were extraordinarily agitated. They made all manner of mouths, turning ont their lips, drawing their mouths awry, as if convulsed, straioiog the eye-balls, and twisting their bodies in all manner of unseemly postures. Some were falling down, others jumping up, catching hold of one another, extending their arms, clap- piog their hande, groaning, talking. Some were approving what was spoken, and saying aye, that is true, 'tis just so, and some were exclaim- ing and crying out aloud, glory, glory. It drowned Mr. Wise's voice. Hle spoke to them, entreated them, condemned the practice, but all to no ригрояе.

" Mr. Gilman came in, and after him a number of these high-flyers, raving like mad men, reproaching, reflecting. One, Hannah Huckins, in a boasting air, said she had gone through adoption, justification and sanctification and perfection and perseverance. She fell to dancing ronad the room, singing some dancing-tunes, jiggs, minnete, and kept the time exactly with her feet.

" Angust 21 I preached from Gal. 2. 20. The people appeared very devont, excepting those that were of Mr. Gilman's party. They, as yesterday, made wry mouths and extraordinary gestures of body. I de- sired and entreated, if they loved the souls of sinners, that they would suffer them to hear what I had to offer to them, but all to no purpose.

" Mr. Gilman says he has a witness within him that I neither preached nor prayed with the Spirit. I told him I had a witness within myself that I did both. He said, 'how can that be when you have your thumb papers and you can hardly read them ?' Ile says he can't receive those who don't receive Woodbury and all those persons, with their extrava- gancies."

To the credit of Mr. Cleaveland, it is to he said that he does not seem to have fallen into the extravag- ances of speech of some others, but in this respect was decorous and discreet. But the views of his newly organized Separatist Church, upon the subject of testing the reality and thoroughness of the couver- sion of preachers before employing them, seem to have corresponded substantially to those of Mr. Davenport. Que article in a code of faith and dis- cipline adopted by said church was as follows:

" Neither Pastor nor Elders shall invite any person to preach, until they are satisfyed that he has a work of grace wro't on his soul."

To judge him impartially, it must be admitted that Davenport was really acting in accordance with the spirit of this arti. le, although he was doing it in a wild and disorderly way.

Mr. Pickering published a pamphlet, entitled "A Bad Omen to the Churches in the Instance of Mr. John Cleaveland's Ordination over a Separation in Chebacco Parish;" and he was preparing for pub- lication another document in reply to " A Plain Nar- rative by the New Church," when he died suddenly, October 7, 1847,-a little more than seven months after Mr. Cleaveland's ordination.

His church, on the 3Ist of the following December, approved a Letter in defence of their Pastor and themselves.

Mr. Pickering was never married. He was long remembered by devoted friends. An elderly lady, who, from her parents had heard the story of the opposition to him, and who a hundred years after its occurrence, pathetically told it to me, was wont to repeat some elegiac verses written soon after his departure, commencing with the words,

1 Ancestor of late Rev. Francie Parkman, of Boston, and of his brother, Dr. George Parkman, who was murdered by Dr. Jolio W. Webster.

2 Rev. Jeremiah Wise, minister of the church in Berwick, Me., a 600 of Rev. John Wise, of Chebacco.

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HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

** M .. rn and Jament ' Your excellent Thes philus is dead."

PRO KLRING STRETTA street leading from Martin street to Western avenue, not far from the house rrected and occupied by Mr. Pickering, has been named in memory and in honor of him.

THIRD MINISTER OF THE ORIGINAL CHURCH. In January, 1749, about a year and a quarter after the death of Mr. Pickering, Rev. Nehemiah Porter, a native of Hamilton, was ordained as his successor.1 Ile was a graduate of Harvard College; and though le -- is recorded of him than of his predecessors, yet he is reputed to have been a man of force and deci- sjon of character, and of highly acceptable talents, as preacher, as evinced by his having sustained him- acht here for seventeen years in the same village with the energetic rival minister Cleaveland.

In 1766 he removed to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, which had been settled in part by people of Che- bacco origin; where he organized a society and church to which he preached for several years; and then removing to Ashfield, Mass., he became the pastor of the church there, continuing in the active discharge of his duties until his eighty-eighth year, andi preaching occasionally for years afterwards. Hle died in 1820, in the one hundredth year of his age."

Hle is said to have left, at his decease, more than two hundred surviving descendants. Rev. Charles S. Porter, first pastor of the present Congregational Church at Gloucester Harbor, was his grandson.

MIR. PORTER THE ONLY CHEBACCO MINISTER

Mr Porter was of the same lineage as the writer of this historical sketch of Essex,-both being descendants of John Porter, who came from England to loghum, Mass., in 1635, and to Salom in 1641; was f the first church in Salem, and afterward of that in Salem Village D'anvers , was Representative from llingham and Salem; was a rennes and the largest land holder in Salem Village.

He wn Joseph married Anna Hathorne, daughter of Major Wm Isthorno, who ate to salem, in 1630, in the Arbellu, with Winthrop; and he ir granddaughter, Mary Porter, married Dr. Jonathan Prince, my great grandfather It is thus that I am a direct descendant of Hathorne, nu f 1' rter

Of the same Porter Langage also was Mrs. Hofen Centt Choate, wife of the late Ich Rufus Chonte. Her internal grandfather was Axa rtel, who graduated at Harvard College in 1752, and settled in New- Sw a merchant About 1780, he removed to Haverhill, S. 11., ost hé 1, ofte a lar .e land-holder. His daughter Saab married

1 Para rather, Di Aton Porter, who settled in Portland, Me .. FRE med inent nan physician, married Panling King, sister ( H Hat king, Elegante from Massachusetts to the Convention La fr elite In'telstate istitution, anl fist I nited States Sen- For free New York, and of Habe. William king, Hist Governor of M. Pr l'ho Harriet be ame the second wife of Ray. cool 1\ him hal four . bobtien, viz., one who died tur Beheer, now devised. Rev. Thomas K 1 . 11 . \ ). 1 Mr Isabela Be cher Hooker, of Hurt- 1 , w re alle ller enut Mrs. Chiste.

1 , 0 00 1 4. 41 \ and his son, Professor E P

bnc la in the date of his bịth, which

RECOGNIZED IN MANCHESTER .- Mr. Cleaveland, in a printed pamphlet, gave an extract from a letter addressed to him by Rev. Benjamin Tappan, pastor of the church in Manchester, in the summer of 1751, more than four years after Cleaveland's ordination, declining to recognize his "society," as he called it, " as a regular church."

Mr. Tappan's Church, in a previous communica- tion, had said: "We know of no more than one Congregational Church at Chebacco, viz., that under the pastoral care of the Rev. Mr. Porter."

LAST MINISTER OF THE CHURCH OF WISE AND PICKERING .- Mr. Porter was the last settled minister of the society and church which from their original formation had been known respectively as the Second Parish and Second Church in Ipswich. In about eight years after his withdrawal, both society and church ceased to exist as distinct organizations, hav- ing become merged respectively in the society and church of Mr. Cleaveland, which had previously been known as the Sixth Parish and Fourth Church in Ipswich; and the corporate name of each was changed to the numeral designation of Second Parish and Second Church, by which the united organiza- tions were always afterwards recognized until the incorporation of the Second or Chebacco Parish into a separate town; when, of course, they each became the First in Essex.

A DISPUTE ABOUT CLEAVELAND PRECIPITATES A DIVISION OF THE FIRST CHURCH IN IPSWICH .- In the same year in which Mr. Cleaveland was ordained in Chebacco, Rev. John Walley, Jr., preached for several months to the First Church and Society in Ipswich town, and was invited by a large majority of the parish to settle with them as pastor; but the friends of Rev. Nathaniel Rogers, who had also preached there, and was himself a candidate for the same position, strenuously objected to such an ar- rangement, partly because Mr. Walley declined to exchange pulpit services with Mr. Cleaveland; whereupon a considerable number withdrew, and or- ganized a separate church and parish, over which Mr. Walley was ordained November 4, 1747. Thus, in part, from a controversy concerning affairs in Chebacco, was created the South Church in Ipswich.

It is true that a proposition had been made some time before, and repeatedly, for a second church and for a meeting-house the other side of the river; but the Cleaveland-controversy element appears to have hastened somewhat, the divisionary movement.

THE CHURCH OF THE SEPARATISTS AND ITS MINISTERS. Rev. John Cleaveland, who was for fifty-two years minister in Chebacco, first visited the place and preached a few times early in 1746,3 while

:It is not improbable that he may have been recommended, and jer- hups introduced here by William Story, a member of the Boston Sepa- rutint Society, who was of Chebacco origin or descent, and whom Mr. Cleaveland, in bis army journal, speaks of as " my good and cordial friend."

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officiating as minister of a Separatist Church in Bos- ton, which worshipped in an edifice in School Street, which had been used by a society of the Protestant refugees called Huguenots, who had fled from France after the repeal of the edict of Nantes.1

Later in the same year, his brother, Rev. Ebenezer Cleaveland, preached here for several months, but does not seem to have " filled the bill " of the expec- tations of the people. Some years afterwards, he be- came the first settled minister of the Fifth Parish in Gloucester, Sandy Bay (now Rockport), where he re sided many years, and where he died, in 1805. His grand-nephew, IIon. Nehemiah Cleaveland, says of him : " From all that I have been able to learn, Ebe- nezer Cleaveland fell a good way short of his broth- er John, both in natural and acquired talents. With a very large family, with very moderate means and many adverse circumstances, his life seems to have been one long and hard struggle."2

To the church in Boston, John Cleaveland preached for some time in the years 1745 and 1746, and re- ceived an invitation to become its settled pastor. This he declined, and accepted an invitation to settle in Chebacco. His distinguished grandson, Hon. Ne- hemiah Cleaveland, of Brooklyn, N. Y., in his notes and comments upon his grandfather's Army Journal, which he edited and furnished for publication in the Essex Institute Historical Collections,3 thus intimates the probable reason of his preference for the latter place :

" From a social and worldly point of view the Boston invitation must have heen more attractive than the Chebacco call. But he found in that plain community of farmers and fishermen one magnet of superior power. I have no doubt that it was the bright and comely Mary Dodge, 4 known in these papers 88 his ' dear and loving spouse,' who virtually determined the question where he should stay. That the young minis- ter was not without earnest competitors for her hand is still shown by documentary evidence."

His ordination took place in February, 1747, the services being held out-of-doors, in front of the dwelling-house in the North District of the town, sub- stantially the same building now owned by Capt. Lamont G. Burnham, and occupied by him as a summer residence. The place was then owned and occupied by Francis Choate, great-grandfather of the late Hon. Rufus Choate. He had been one of the most zealous originators of the new-light organiza- tion, and was a ruling elder of the new church.

1 The same pulpit, years after Mr. Cleaveland preached in it, was, for awhile, occupied by the celebrated Universalist, Rev. John Murray. It was while discoursing hers on one occasion that some bigoted and disorderly persons endeavored to create a disturbance, and one of them, to show his hostility to Mr. Murray's theological sentiments, threw a stone at him. It did not strike him, but fell upon the pulpit floor. Picking it up and holding it in his hand before the audience, Murray said : " This argument is solid and weiglity, but not convincing."

2 Essex Inst. Hist. Coll., XII. 93.

% Vol. xii., p. 86.

4 The lady who, five months after his ordination, became his wife. She was a danghter of Parker and Mary (Choate) Dodge, and grand- daughter of Capt. Thomas Choate, of Hog Island. Her mother was a sister of my great-great-grandmother, Rachel (Choate) Martin.

It was an inclement season of the year for religious exercises of any length to be held in the open air ; but there was no building in the place sufficiently large to accommodate the audience, except the meeting-house of Mr. Pickering's society; and the bitter feeling toward the secessionists in all probabil- ity precluded the offer of a loan of that edifice for the occasion.

Of the subsequent ministerial career of Mr. Cleave- land, extending over half a century until his death, upon his seventy-seventh birth-day, April 22, 1799, I shall present here but little more than an outline.

While not intellectually the equal of either Wise or Pickering, and not a person of the scholastic at- tainments and culture of the latter especially, he wax, nevertheless, a man of very respectable talents. His army journal and published discourses and contro- versial pamphlets, as well as his narrative of remark- able religious phenomena in his parish, while ex- hibiting some carelessness by their occasional lapses in grammar, show that he was a ready and vigorous writer, with considerable power and skill in graphic description.

HIS ORATORY .- As a public speaker, I judge, from authentic accounts of his manner in the pulpit, that he was usually more forcible than elegant. A lapidary might have figuratively classified him as a diamond in the rough. Rev. Dr. Crowell, who be- came one of his successors as pastor about fifteen years after his death, and who conversed with many who for years had been regular attendants upon his ministrations, has described him as speaking so loudly while preaching, that "persons sitting at an open window on the opposite side of the street, when the windows and doors of the church were open, have distinctly heard the greater part of his sermon." Rev. Dr. Daniel Dana, son of the minister of the South Church in Ipswich, who in his youth must have often heard him in his father's pulpit, said of him: "He was by no means a graceful preacher. His manner sometimes bordered on the rough and even the boisterous. In those good days, elegance in preaching was less in demand, and its absence less a topic of complaint, than in these fastidious times." 5 In the diary of Rev. Dr. Cogswell,6 minister of the parish in Connecticut where Mr. Cleaveland spent his early life, is the following allusion to him, under date of October 26, 1766: " Mr. John Cleaveland preached for me to good acceptance in general. He was very loud and earnest, and preached without notes. His doctrines were good. The greater part of the Sepa- ratists went to hear him."

He was magnetic in his oratory, and from the re- corded effect of it upon his hearers he was evidently at times pathetic. If unpolished, his elocution was probably in somewhat better taste than that of

5 Sprague's "Annals of the American Pulpit," vol. i.

6 A descendant of John Cogswell, early settler of Chebacco.

73}

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HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

Dickens', Rev. Melchisedec Howler, upon whose public services Captain Buusby's landlady was such a constant and devout attendant.

LUISCOMFORT IN THE PULPIT IN WINTER .- The Intensity of emphasis, in voice aud accompanying gesture, with which Mr. Cleaveland occasionally ex- pressel himself, was sometimes an impulse of the mo- ment, representing his mood of mind and feeling. An elderly resident, who passed away many years since, told me that in her youth she attended church on an unusually cold Sunday, when he preached; and there being neither stove nor furuace in the meeting- house, everybody present suffered from the keenness of the temperature. He appeared to be bravely en- during it as long as he could, and then pausing in his discourse, he stamped with his feet, and exclaimed, · t) God ! who can stand before thy cold?" (Psaloi cxlvii. 17.1

Its ACOUNT OF A REVIVAL. One of his publica- lions was entitled "A Short and Plain Narrative of the late Work of God's Spirit at Chebacco in Ips- wich in the years 1763 and 1764." Of this the fol- lowing is an extract :

' After 1 had concluded the public service I went down among the Distri- ) the whole Congregation tarried. and found Divers in the rep .- t Ag ins of soul Distress ; young Women pleaded with the greut- est Ing ertunity for Mercy. And I found several who received Comfort that Afternoon, nud these were immediately filled with Bowels of Com. j win for others, and were pleading with their Equals to give up their Imart, their All, Their whole Selves, to the blessed Jestis, saying, · Christ is alle And willing to save you-be came into the World to save hol Munere. If you will not give up yourself, your All, to Christ, you must be damned.' . . > mo that were brought into soul Distress that Aftern n ntinved ] raying and crying for Mercy for three Days and Notte, w thent sleeping or taking any Thing for the Support of their Naturen, n wl were brought to be very weak in Body before they found V'unsolution In Christ. The Kingdom of Heaven most evidently suf- Fre | Von e, and the Violent Druk it by Force ; People pressed into it ! sup ha Diy nud Evenin . I never saw before for the display of God's pow- . rful (r .' it Is beyond Description : * *

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History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II, Part 49

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