History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II, Part 51

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 51

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His Axer-TRY .- According to tradition he was of Welsh extraction, his first ancestor in this country having come from Wales to Charlestown, Mass., in 1635, rem wing thence, in 1638, to Yarmouth, then a now settle ment within the Plymouth Colony ; where he was a maroof some distinction, who had a grant of land and became a magistrate. He died in 1672 or 1673. 11 - grandson John removed from Yarmouth

In this latter place, Robert, the subject of this Foster, was born December 9, 1797. He was a great- great-grandson of the last mentioned John, and son ot Captalo Samuel, who commanded a privateer duri th war of the Revolution and was lost at sea wlah master of' a merchant vessel, on a voyage to the

D. Crowell's mother, Lydia (Woodbury) Crowell,

was a daughter of Josiah Woodbury, and a native of Hollis, N. H. It is not improbable that she may have been of the same lineage as that of the late Hon. Levi Woodbury, of New Hampshire, who was a Judge of the Supreme Court of that State, U. S. Senator, Secretary of the Navy during President Jackson's administration and Secretary of the Treas- ury under President Van Buren, and who was at the time of his death a Judge of the Supreme Court of the I'nited States. He was a descendant of John Woodbury, one of the first settlers of Beverly, as are most, if not all, of the Woodburys in New England, whose genealogy is clearly traceable. Of the same lineage was the late Robert Woodbury Burnham, of Essex, whose paternal grandmother's maiden name was Woodbury. She was a native of Beverly Farms.

HIS PUBLICATIONS .- A few of his discourses were

livery, the two most notable being a historical ser- mon, preached in 1815, with the words from Job, viii. 8, as a text or motto .- " For enquire, I pray thee, of the former aye, and prepare thyself to the search of their fathers,"-relating chiefly to the persons and events of his parish and church ;- and a sermon de- livered in the year 1818, upon the occasion of re-in- terring the coffins which had been robbed of their contents. This discourse is noticed more fully in an- other chapter of this history.

A discourse on the death of Rev. Joseph Dana, of Ipswich, and one upon the death of Rev. David Jew- ett, of Sandy Bay, were also printed; and likewise his address delivered October 27, 1852, at the conse- cration of Spring Street Cemetery.

llis most voluminous publication was his history of Essex, the first chapter of which, covering the period from its first settlement to the year 1700, was issued in a small, bound volume, in 1853, two years prior to his death.

Dr. C'rowell died November 10, 1855. He was, in theological belief, a Calvinist; and his last words, manuscript, his continuation of it as far as the year which were inscribed upon his monument, express his faith in the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints. 1814, leaving some materials for its extension yet further,-his plan contemplating, as appears by the statement of his son, its close with the year 1819, when this parish of Ipswich was incorporated as a separate town.

He had, at the time of his decease, completed, in

In 1867, the manuscript, which had been com- pleted only as far as the year 1814, was purchased by the town, and a committee, cousisting of Edwin Sar- gent, John C. Choate and Hervey Burnham, made arrangements for its publication,-the work being continued down to the year 1868, by the author's son, Professor E. P. Crowell, of Amherst College. It was issued from the press in the autumn of that year, and is an octavo volume of four hundred and eighty- right pages, comprising a memoir of the author, by his son, and some valuable contributions by Hon. David Choate, the principal of which is an elaborate account of the action of the town in sustaining the Union cause during the late Civil War, with inter-

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esting personal notices and sketches of the soldiers. The work is, in general, lucidly arranged, and one of the best written of town histories. Dr. Crowell's fancy sketches of visits to the abodes of the early settlers, with descriptions of their household uten- sils, the usages and habits of their daily life, their wearing apparel, their English customs and their per- sonal appearance, bring them vividly before us, as living, breathing entities of flesh and blood, instead of shadows. We seem drawn near to them, and have a more distinctive and quickening idea of their character and their experiences of despair and hope, of sorrow and joy, and their deep religious faith and trust, than would be derived from an impersonal and bare matter-of-fact recital of outline historic detail.

HIS CRITICISM OF THE QUAKERS .- Dr. Crowell so revered the memory of the Puritan settlers of New England, that he was unwilling to admit that they were deserving even of censure for their treatment of the Quakers. His entire sincerity will not be ques- tioned by those of his acquaintances who dissent from his conclusions relative to those people, as ex- pressed on pages thirty-nine and forty of his town history. I presume that he had been prejudiced against them by reading some of the unjust accusa- tions of their enemies.

I shall say nothing in this connection but what I should have said in his presence, and to which he would have candidly listened, I have no doubt, as he more than once did, without the slightest jar in our amicable personal relations, when conversing upon some of our divergent opinions.

A stranger to him might perhaps suppose that if he had lived in the early period referred to, he would have been active and relentless in persecuting the Quaker immigrants. The probability is, however, that the genial old gentleman wouldn't have done any such thing! He was naturally very humane, and would not intentionally have given pain to a fly. On one occasion a young woman, who came into the town to attend an anti-slavery convention, arose in his meeting, on Sunday morning, just as he was about to commence the delivery of his sermon, and insisted upon speaking. He very properly de- clined to be forcibly interrupted, but told her that if she would wait until he had finished his discourse, he would not object to her speaking, but would hear what she had to say. This was certainly very gentle and liberal treatment, but as she pertinaciously in- sisted upon talking at that particular point of time, some members of the congregation led her out.1

I believe that some of the charges of Quaker ex-

travagance of speech and impropriety of conduct are gross exaggerations, though I doubt not that they may have been tinged with fanaticism; while it is difficult to see how they could have materially dam- aged anybody. They were charged with having made " rude and contemptuous answers " to questions before the Court of Assistants. But after carefully reading the said answers, as recorded by the court it- self, I assert, without fear of contradiction, that they are in every particular as respectful, and not so defi- ant, as the answers of the famous John Rogers, the martyr, to the questions of the Ecclesiastical Court, that condemned him to be burnt at the stake. The answers in both cases were fearless and incisive, but entirely proper. Why should Rogers be pictured in the primer as the immaculate saint, expiring amid the flames, with his wife and " nine small children and one at the breast " in the foreground, to excite our sympathy ; and the poor Quakers be at the same time denounced as contumacious criminals? The same argument which could justify the barbarous cruelty in the one case would justify it in the other.

Entirely impartial and just, I think, is the conclu- sion concerning this portion of New England history, adopted by a distinguished grandson of Rev. John Cleaveland. In speaking of the Colonial Governor, John Endicott, who signed the death-warrant of the four Quakers hung on Boston Common, he says :

" This was the time of the Quaker persecution-an affair which says little for the liberality, or even the good sense, of our fathers In the indelible reproach, then incurred by Massachusetts, our Governor must bear hie share. Let us see that be does not bear more. " 2

In 1661, King Charles the Second sent an order or letter to the General Court, requiring them to dis- continue all proceedings against the Quakers, and to send to England such as were then under arrest. The royal order was brought to Massachusetts by a Quaker, Samuel Shattuck, who had been banished. According to Macaulay's "History of England, that illustrious Quaker, William Penn, had great influ- ence with King Charles 1I., as well as with his brother and successor, James II.

LATER PREACHERS. - Seven different persons have been pastors of the Congregational Church here since the death of Dr. Crowell-Rev. James M. Bacon, who remained thirteen years, and who died in Ashby, Massachusetts, in 1873; Rev. D. A. Morehouse, four and a quarter years ; Rev. Edward G. Smith, one year and seven months; Rev. John L. Harris, be- tween one and two years; Rev. F. H. Boynton, two years and five months ; Rev. F. H. Palmer, for a short period ; and Rev. Temple Cutler, the present pastor.

Mr. Cutler was born in Lynn, Mass., May 4, 1828. His father was Temple Cutler, son of Rev. Dr. Ma- nasseh Cutler, so long the minister of the Hamlet Parish, both before and after its incorporation as a

1 Miss Maria French, of Salem, in December, 1842; an undoubtedly sincere persoo, who had become fanatical upon what she regarded as the indifference of the church to the wrongs and woes of the slave. She had, herself, been a member of a Congregational Church, but had joined a class termed " come-outers," who felt hurdened with a mission to cry aloud aod spare not, anywhere and at any tioie, -much like some of the early Quakers, who were, no doubt, equally harmless.

" Hon. Nehemiah Cleveland, in Appendix to Topsfield Bi-Centennial Address, 1850.

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HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

town.1 His mother was Hannah Appleton, daughter of Captain Oliver Appleton, of Ipswich, a descendant of the John Appleton who in 1757 joined with Rev. John Wise and others, in resistance to the illegal tax levied upon the colony by Governor Andros. John Appleton's wife was Priscilla, daughter of Rev. Jos- eph Glover, to whom he was married in 1651. Mr. t'utler is, therefore, descended from clerical stock of the olden time, as well as of a more recent period.

He matriculated at Yale College in 1853, and graduated at Marietta College in Marietta, Ohio, in 1857. He studied also at Andover Theological Seminary, graduating from that institution in 1857. His first settlement was at Skowhegan, Maine, where he was ordained and installed, February 20, 1861. He was chaplain of the Ninth Regiment of Maine Volunteers for nine months during the recent war, and in 1>64 was for several months in the service of the Christian Commission. He was settled in Athol, Massachusetts, from 1868 to 1876; and was after- wards, for five years, in the service of the American Missionary Association, at Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Charleston, South Carolina. In 1881, he return- ed to Hamilton, where he preached for two years. In 1853, October Ist, he came to Essex, where he still officiates as pastor.

SEATING THE CONGREGATION .- In this place, as also throughout the Puritan settlements, it was for some time the custom to assign the most eligible seats in the meeting-house according to wealth and high social position, or official rank. This usage was an expression of the aristocratic exelusiveness en- grafted upon their minds in England, and which they did not immediately outgrow. I have sometimes wondered if they ever read in their public services

1 While pastor at Hamilton, Manasseh Cutler became qualified as a physic en, often pra ticing gratuitously for the linefit of the poor. He was also a member of Congress, He was doubly entitled Doctor, as Vale Collage, from which he had years before graduated, conferred upwou him the title of LL. D.

Tw . in deuts of his life, perhaps now known to but few persons, are fn ftl Jent general interest to be related in a book upon Essex County :

1 In 17×4, while journeying in n chuise between Hamilton, Mass., and the på meer settlement at Marietta, Ohlo, of which he was projector ant lewler, rillug a distance of more than seven hundred miles euch way, ho called upon Dr. Franklin, in Philadelphia, and was entertained by him at ten ; and the weather being warm, the supper-tablo was set in the garden. Whit n charming x'one for the imagination to recall ! The vieille vo and patriot, who o fame as philosopher, statesman and w.mot tled two hemispheres, entertaining hils worthy guest Ir in be rast with such ungstentions cordiality and pastoral sim.

2 De Lufler was probably one of the most thoroughly informed bo- tan in the country When Dr. Samuel Thomson, once widely known anal tal phys in, was trie 1, In salem, for alleged mal-practico in quilug the death of a young man In Beverly, named Lovett, by admin- lale ting From as a medis Ine, and two physicians, one from Beverly and 1 . 1 rh di bib l ry, tretitled against him, exhibiting a specimen if what they terme Hob ha which they declared was a dangerous poi- en, Dr Cate, who aggregated an a witness for the defence, was not afra Itre et is in ourt to the surge for and amusement of the bench and bar Hle mail it was rifeier sem iry, which he had often used for re- lhfinchien Ainid the uffawsof the sheetut ors, the case was thrown Mart, and Th -mnom was diecharged.

the first four verses of the second chapter of the Epistle of that radical believer in human equality, the Apostle James :

" My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons. For if there come into your assembly a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment ; and ye have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him, Sit thou here in a good place ; and say to the poor, Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool ; are ye not then partial in yourselres, and hecome judges of evil thoughts ? "

FIRST BAPTIST PREACHING .- For more than one hundred and seventy years after its first settlement, there were no religious meetings in Chebacco, but those of Orthodox Congregationalists.

No meeting-house was erected in the place for any other sect, for one hundred and thirty years, from 1679, (the year the first house was built, without leave), to 1809. In the latter year, a plain, flat-roofed structure, without steeple or tower, was erected upon the site of the house now occupied by the Methodists. It was in dimensions about thirty-five feet square. Its pulpit was plain and of pine, and, instead of pews, it had long benches.

CHRISTIAN CHURCH .- The Christian Baptist So- ciety and Church, which occupied this building, had been organized in the spring of the preceding year. The church had no written creed, and the members styled themselves Christians, without prefix or affix, citing the historical statement of the New Testament, that "the Disciples were called Christians first in Antioch." They accepted the Bible, es- pecially the New Testament, without note or com- ment, as their confession of faith and practical guide. They were, in faith and organization, substantially the same as the Church of the Disciples, in Pennsyl- vania and in some of the Western States, the church of which the late President Garfield was a member and at one time a lay preacher. Its adher- ents are sometimes styled Campbellites. after Alex- ander Campbell, the principal founder of the sect at the West.

ELDER ELIAS SMITHI .- The most distinguished of the preachers of this denomination in New England, who assisted in the formation in Chebacco of this Church of Christian Baptists, or Christians, as they preferred to be called, was Elder Elias Smith, father of Rev. Daniel D. and Rev. Matthew Hale Smith, and unele of Dr. Jerome V. C. Smith, long the Port- Physician of Boston, for several years Mayor of that city, at the same time a Professor in the Berkshire Medical College, and widely known as a successful and entertaining lyceum-lecturer.

FIRST RELIGIOUS NEWSPAPER IN THE COUNTRY. -It was while preaching to the Christian Church in Chebacco, that Elias Smith commenced the publica- tion of the first religious newspaper in the United States. The first number was issued in September, 1808, between seven and eight years prior to the es- tablishment of the Boston Recorder. It was printed in Portsmouth, N. II., though much of the, editorial

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writing was done in this place. It was entitled "Herald of Gospel Liberty." Its publication was continued for about nine years.

Elder Smith was at first a Calvinistic Baptist. On the incorporation of the Free Will element in his theology, he joined the Christian denomination : or rather, he was, in fact, one of the founders of that re- ligious order, particularly in New England. IIe afterwards became a Universalist, and is said to have been, later in life, of Rationalistic tendencies.

Ilis early advantages for obtaining an education were limited, but he made amends for any deficiency in this respect by the force of his remarkable natural abilities. He was specially quick of apprehension and quick-witted. On one occasion, soon after he had left one sect and joined another, an adherent of his former faith greeted him in public, unexpectedly, and rather sharply, with the question, " Mr. Smith, why did you turn from us to another denomination ?" Perceiving that it would be idle and useless to enter upon an elaborate explanation before a chance- gathered group of persons, listening from motives of curiosity, he merely replied that he did it in obedience to an injunction of Scripture. " Ah!" said his questioner, " how's that ? What particular passage of Scripture was it?" Smith answered: "Your de- nomination gives such poor support to its preachers, that I couldn't live among you and provide for my family; and so I obeyed the command which says : 'Turn ye, turn ye, for why will ye die?' " ] The questioner collapsed.

Mr. Smith finally became a physician, and was quite successful, using botanic remedies exclusively ; for the sale of which he kept a store in Ilanover Street, Boston, where, in passing, I often observed the sign of " Elias Smith," over the door.

One day, in a railroad car, an old acquaintance, by way of jocose reference to his changes of sectarian connection, saluted him with the abrupt question, " Brother Smith, what's your doctrine now ?" He re- plied : " My doctoring now is for the body. I have done with doctrine for the soul."

He died in 1846, at the age of eighty-five.

OTHER CHRISTIAN PREACHERS .-- Elder John Rand sustained the relation of regular pastor of this church for a longer period, I believe, than any other minister. HIe resided here about seven years. He was very acceptable as a speaker, and was personally popular. The only criticism of him that I ever heard of, was that of one of his people, who, it was said, expressed the opinion that he " spent rather too much time in currying his horse."

At various times, Elders Stinchfield, Jones, Booth- by, Swett, Robinson, Banfield, Sylvanus Brown, Elam Burnham and his brothers, Wesley, Edwin and George, have officiated here for brief periods. With the exception of Mr. Rand, those preaching here the

longest time continuously, were probably, Elder Swett and Elder Elam Burnham.

The people of this society and church were from the first sincere and consistent believers in human equality. One of their preachers was a colored man named Tash, who is said to have been an interesting speaker, and of considerable mental ability. He preached here fifty or more years ago; and it is a curi- ous circumstance that he used in one of his discourses a figure of speech which occurs in one of the printed sermons of the present celebrated London preacher Rev. C. HI. Spurgeon, and has been cited in compila- tions of some of his particularly bright sayings. It was repeated to me in 1840 by the late Gilman M. Burnham, who had some years previously heard it from Tash's lips, at a time when Spurgeon could have been only a child, if indeed he had then been born, as his birth did not occur until 1834, and he commenced speaking in public as an exhorter as late as 1851, and the next year first preached to a Baptist society at the age of eighteen.

Speaking of the neglect of some people to read the Bible, Mr. Tash said they would lay it aside " till the dust gathered so thickly on it that you could, with the finger, write the word 'damnation' on the cover." Spurgeon expresses the same idea exactly in very similar, if not precisely the same phraseology.

Of the members of this society and church, it can with truth be stated that no more sincerely devotional and honest-minded people, and no better citizens, ever lived in the town. Of the early founders of the church, one of the most prominent was the late Deacon Aaron Burnham, whose zeal and devotedness have often been mentioned by those who heard him sing in the publie meetings his favorite hymn, begin - ning with the lines,-

" How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord, Is laid for your faith in his excellent word."

Of the twenty-two original members of the church, probably not one is now living. Of those who were afterwards members of the society or church, or of both, Moses Knowlton, Frederick Andrews, William H. Burnham, John C. Burnham, and perhaps a few others, are survivors.

In 1849 a new edifice was built upon the site of the first meeting-house, which had been taken down a year or two previously. This building is styled the Century Chapel, from the circumstance that the land on which it stands was leased by the proprietors for one hundred years.

It is now occupied as a place of public worship by the Methodist Society and Church.

THE UNIVERSALIST SOCIETY was organized in 1829 by forty-three persons, who signed its constitu- tion and agreed to its general statement of belief.

Clergymen of that faith had occasionally preached in this place before that date, among whom were Rev. Ezra Leonard, of Annisquam, originally settled there as an Orthodox Congregationalist, but who, having

1 Ezekiel, xxxiii. 11.

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HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

become converted to the doctrine of universal salva- tion, went over, with his church and society, to that communion ; and the successor of Murray, at Glouces- ter Harbor, Rev. Thomas Jones, a native of Wales, one of the best educated ministers of that town, hav- ing graduated ut the famous institution founded in England yy the mul iticence of Lady Huntington.

Alter the formation of the society, meetings were held more frequently. Of the preachers who from time to time offic ated here were Rev. Fayette Mace, who soThe years afterwards joined the Shakers, Rev. Robt. L. K lham, Rev. Henry Belden, Rev. Lemnel Willis, then pastor at salem, and others.

In 1835 Rev. Joseph Banfield, who had been preaching statedly for the Christian Baptists, adopted the faith of the Universalists, and was by them em- ployed for some time, being the first minister who preached for them regularly and consecutively.

Mr. Banfield was the father of Hon. Everett C. Banfield, a lawyer of some note, who during President tirant's administration was Solicitor of the I'nited States Treasury Department at Washington.

The society held its meeting, a part of the time in the Christian Baptist meeting-house, which was loaned them for the purpose, and on other occasions in the school-houses, at the Falls, and in the Thomp- son Island District, and a few times, as had been the case with Mr. Cleaveland's society in the preceding century, in a barn.

THE UNIVERSALIST MEETING-HOUSE. In 1836 the edifice, now standing, was erceted under the super- intendence of a building committee. consisting of Jacob Story, John Dexter, Sr., Parker Burnham, (2d), Oliver Low and Samuel Hardy. The sale of the pews yielded five hundred dollars more than the entire cost of the land, house and furniture, which was the sum of four thousand five hundred dollars. The overplus of five hundred dollars was, by vote of the society, presented to the builder, Mr. Benjamin Courtney, who found, at the finishing of his faithful work, that he had lost money by his contract. Thus the society . rowned the completion of its temple of worship by a feel of practical Christianity.

The house was dedicated December 14, 1836, Rev. Thomas Whitemore preaching the dedicatory ser-

Smith, for a few months; Rev. Harrison Closson, for about four years; and Rev. George J. Sanger, the present pastor.

Mr. Sanger was born in Framingham, Mass., Au- gust 27, 1826, and was the son of Daniel and Clarissa Sanger. His education was received in the common schools of his native town and in the academies of Framingham and Marlboro'. He was ordained as a minister of the Universalist Church in Sippican, a village in the town of Rochester, Mass., September 8, 1847. He has been settled in Sandwich, Glouces- ter, Hardwick, Webster, Danvers and Essex. He served as chaplain of the Forty-second Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteers in the War of the Rebell- ion, and was taken prisoner at the battle of Galves- ton, January 1, 1863, and was discharged from the service August 20, 1863. He was a member of the Massachusetts Legislature in the years 1869, 1873 and 1874, representing the towns of Webster and Dan- vers. Hle commenced as pastor of the Essex Uni- versalist Church September 1, 1884.

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History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II, Part 51

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