USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > History of King's Chapel, in Boston : the first Episcopal church in New England : comprising notices of the introduction of Episcopacy into the northern colonies > Part 6
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PERIOD FIFTHI.
The Bishop * says of him, in a letter written in April, 1729, "He has been long known to me, and is one whom I am willing to en- trust with the power of commissary for in- specting the lives and manners of the clergy, if he succeed in that place ; and I think a better service cannot be done the congregation than the inducing both parties to unite in him."
The account of the new rector's induction is truly a tale of old times to us, and must impress every reflecting mind with a sense of the changes which a century has produced on this spot.
" At a meeting of the Vestry in King's Chapel on the 25. June, 1729,
" Present,
WILLIAM RANDLE, Church Wardens. WILLIAM SPEAKMAN,
JAMES STEVENS, EsQ. JOHN CHECKLEY,
GEORGE CRADOCK, BENJAMIN WALKER,
JOSHUA WROE,
SAMUEL GRAINGER,
GEORGE STEWART, ROBERT SKINNER,
JONATHAN PUE , ESQ.
THOMAS CREESE, JUNR.
THOMAS CHILD,
THOMAS HOLKER.
THOMAS WALLIS.
" About four o'clock in the afternoon, the Rev. Mr Roger Price was conducted into King's
* Edmund Gibson was then Bishop of London.
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Chapel by the Rev. Mr Henry Harris, it being a few hours after the arrival of the Rev. Mr Price, and a letter from Mr Thomas Sandford to the Committee was read, importing that the Rev. Mr Roger Price was the person he had present- ed to the Lord Bishop of London, by virtue of the power devolved upon him by the votes of the Congregation of the 13th March, 1727-8. Whereupon the Rev. Mr Price produced the following Licence and Certificate, reading them in the Church, and then delivered them to the Church Wardens to be recorded in the Church Book."
Here follow copies of the Bishop's Licence in Latin, and Mr Price's declaration in English to conform to the Liturgy, duly sealed and signed. Then the account proceeds.
" These above being read, the Rev. Mr Henry Harris, the Church Wardens, the Vestry-men, and the people who were present, all went out of the Church, the Church Wardens at the door delivering the key of the Church to the Rev. Mr Price, who locking himself in the Church, tolled the bell, and then unlocked the door of the Church, receiving the Church Wardens and Vestry men into the Church again, who wished him joy upon his having possession of the Church.
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- Then the Rev. Mr Price ordered the Clerk to give public warning in the Church upon the Sunday following, that the Congregation meet in the Church next Wednesday, at eleven of the clock in the Forenoon."
This ceremony was in accordance with the customs of the English Church ; but though it was gratifying to many of the Chapel congrega- tion, and met with open opposition from none, there were yet many who did not in the least relish it, for a republican spirit was even now working in this most royal and loyal church. There were many who preferred to come to the King's Chapel, who yet were not thorough Eng- lish churchmen. They had the congregation- al notions respecting their property, and could with difficulty agree that Mr Price should own, even in form, what they had paid for. They had a dislike, also, to the whole proceeding of foreign presentation to the Bishop. These sen- timents spread and prevailed in the church more and more.
Mr Harris survived the arrival of Mr Price but a few months. He died on the 16th of the following October; and it may serve to show the terms on which the church and he had lived together for a few years past, to state, what is
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unpleasant to state in the solemn connexion of death, that more than a year after his decease, the congregation voted that no money should be paid out of the church stock toward defraying the charge of burying him, though they had granted an expensive funeral to Mr Myles. His life, indeed, for the last years of it, must have been but a " fitful fever," and whatever were the exciting causes of it, or whoever was most to blame for it, himself or others, it is enough now to know, that " after it he slept well." This is the universal termination, and it is a quiet one. And, truly, as I turn over the yellow leaves of our records, and read the lines of faded ink, and note the successive variations of orthography and style, and the constant changes of handwriting, and see names, some familiar and some forgotten, of min- isters, governors, wardens and vestrymen, appear- ing and then disappearing, the representatives of generations which have here "kept holy time," the fleeting nature of our life, with all its scenes and occupations, is revealed to me with more than a common distinctness, and men and ages seem to melt away before me like the flakes of snow in spring-time, which dissolve as they feel the earth. And when I have perused votes, ex- pressive of division or estrangement, and think that the hands which were held up to pass them,
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PERIOD FIFTH.
and the hands which were employed in record- ing those, are now turned to dust, and that some of those who were so active and so heated then are now sleeping coldly in the green yard beside us, or beneath this very floor,* I seem to hear the voice, the " still small voice " of peace. It speaks of love; it speaks from the grave; it speaks to those for whom the grave is waiting - and alas for us if it speaks in vain.
Immediately after Mr Harris's death, the con- gregation applied, as usual, to the Bishop of London, for some one to succeed him. The Rev. Thomas Harward was accordingly sent ; and the Bishop, in a letter to Mr Price, dated July 3d, 1730, thus speaks of him. " Mr Harward, who comes over to succeed Mr Harris, is well recommended by the neighboring clergy in Surrey, where he has been an incumbent for many years, near Guilford ; and their recommen- dation is confirmed by the Bishop of Winchester, their Diocesan, according to the method I use for receiving due satisfaction concerning the Charac- ters of such Persons as offer themselves for mis- sionaries. He is directed to behave himself to- wards you with all due respect, as his Superior,
* There are family tombs under the Chapel, and a large one, called the Stranger's Tomb, under the tower.
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and not to intermeddle in any matter, but what shall appear to belong to him as Lecturer. But it is impossible for me to descend to particulars, since I do not know what share of duty properly belongs to him as such. If you can fix that mat- ter between yourselves, with the advice and as- sistance of some serious persons of the Congrega- tion. I shall be ready to ratify it, that it may be a rule to all future Ministers and Lecturers of that Church."
Mr Price received at the same time from the Bishop his Commission as Commissary ; an of- fice which had been created for the sake of the English Church in America, to answer the pur- poses in some measure, of the episcopal function and dignity. It was a kind of vicarage under the Bishop, invested with a superintending authority from the Bishop, and subject to his control. Other Commissaries beside Mr Price had been appointed for other parts of the country. "I also send you," says Bishop Gibson, "three copies of the Directions I have drawn, for all the Commissarys in the Plantations, in order to their proceeding against irregular Clergymen, which I hope you will have no occasion to carry into practice."
Of Mr Harward, the assistant, or lecturer, or king's chaplain, as he was indifferently termed,
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PERIOD FIFTII.
we hear nothing in connexion with the Chapel, but that not long after his arrival he refused to join with a Committee appointed by the united vestries of King's Chapel and Christ Church, in drawing up a memorial to the Bishop of London, and a petition to the King, respecting what were called " the sufferings of the Churchmen in this Province." .
The sufferings of the Churchmen! What a change, and what a retribution ! Think of the days of Archbishop Laud. Think of the " suf- ferings " of the old puritans. And think, and think again, how unjust, how blind are pains and penalties and all kinds of coercion in matters of religion. History teaches nothing more plainly than this ; and it teaches nothing more impor- tant than this, or more necessary to be learned, and got by heart ; and yet how slowly it has been learned, and with how little heartiness have its truth and necessity been accepted. The suf- forings complained of, arose directly from the ope- ration of the laws of the Colony. Members of the Church of England were distrained and im- prisoned for not paying towards the building of Congregational, or what they termed Dissenting meeting-houses, and the support of Dissenting teachers. Application was made for redress to the " Great and! General Court ; " and the
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Court being backward in affording redress, the united churches employed counsel to prosecute their claims in London, and chose a committee, as before stated, to represent their case to their Diocesan and to the King.
The answer which the Bishop returns, sets forth, it must be confessed, in a strong light, the impartiality of the gentlemen of the law abroad, and their adherence to their principles in spite of their feelings and prejudices. " We have at last obtained," he says in his letter to Mr Price, of Feb. 6, 1732-3, " the opinion of the Attorney and Solicitor General in relation to the New Eng- land Charter, and the power of the Legislature there to make laws for rateing the members of the Episcopal Churches to the Independent Ministers." He then declares, though with sor- row, that those high legal authorities thought that the exercise of the power claimed by the colony began so carly, and had continued so long, that there was little encouragement to hope that their acts could be pronounced null and void. " I am obliged to write," he adds, " in this plain, though uncomfortable manner, that you may judge how far it will be advisable for the members of the Church there to make it a Cause ; and if judge- ment be given against them, as it certainly will, to bring it before the King and Council by way of appeal."
Here was consistency, at least. Dissemers in England were, and still are obliged to support the clergy of the establishment, beside obliging themselves to support their own, and it was but fair that Churchmen, when surrounded abroad by a majority who looked on them as Dissenters, should not be permitted to complain very loudly or effectually of the operation of a principle which was acted on at home .* But how defec- tive is the principle itself; and how impossible it is, at least in this case, for an old wrong to grow into a right.
On the 15th of April, 1736, Mr Harward died,t and the usual application for another Assist-
* The grievance to the Churchmen here, was not in fact very great. Only three cases of oppression could be produced before the General Court, and the churches were obliged to pay for hunting up more. One thing complained of was, the refusal of seats in the Board of Overseers of Harvard College to the ministers of King's Chapel and Christ Church.
t At a vestry meeting, April 16, 1736. " Voted that Mr John Merrett, Mr James Gordon, and Thomas Greene be a Committee to take care that the Rev. Mr Thomas Harward be buried in a decent frugal manner, and in the absence of either of them, Mr Samuel Bannister is to act in his room." At a meeting of the Congregation, April 18. " Voted that the charges that shall arise by burying the Rev. Mr Thomas Harward, deceased, be paid out of the Church Stock. Voted, that Mr John Merrett, Mr James Gordon, and Thomas Greene be a Committy to order the way and manner of the funeral."
7
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PERIOD FIFTH.
ant was again made to the Bishop, in a letter from the rector, wardens and vestry. In this let- ter they say, " Our infant Church being sur- rounded with ten dissenting Congregations in this principal Town, which are provided with Minis- ters the most esteemed for Learning and Piety among them, its prosperity depends much on the Abilities and good Qualities of our Ministers. We therefore relye on your Lordship's Judge- ment and Goodness in speedily supplying us with a proper Person." The person appointed was the Rev. Mr Addington Davenport, who had been for some time minister or missionary to the church in Scituate. He entered on his duties about a year after the death of Mr Harward. Bishop Gibson wrote him the following letter on - his appointment.
" WHITEHALL, JAN. 29, 1736-7.
" GOOD SIR, - I have appointed you to suc- ceed Mr Harward in the duty at the King's Chapple, there to be performed by you under the rules and directions which have been given by the Bishop Compton and myself. You will not fail in general to pay all due respect to Mr Price, both as chief Pastor of the congregation and as my Commissary ; and when the duty of this latter station obliges him to be absent from Boston, which, as I am informed, is very seldom
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I think it reasonable that you should perform his duty there without expecting any gratuity for it. As to the other accidental inabilities or absences on account of health or necessary business, which both of you in your turns may have occasion for, I hope there is no need to exhort either of you to afford mutual assistance to each other. I desire you to communicate this letter to Mr Price, and have no more to add at this time but to commend you to the Divine protection, and to wish you success in your pastoral labours, which will always be a great satisfaction to
Sir, your assured Friend and Brother, EDM. LONDON."
And still Episcopacy continued to spread in Boston. Notwithstanding Christ Church was built in 1723, and large galleries had since been added to King's Chapel, it had been resolved as early as the year 1728 to build a new Church at the corner of Summer Street and Bishop-alley, now Hawley Street, " by reason that the Chapel was full, and no pews to be bought by new comers." The corner stone of Trinity Church was laid by Commissary Price, on the 15th of April, 1734. On the 15th of August, 1735, the Rev. Mr Harward read prayers there, and Mr Price preached the first sermon. Afterwards Mr Price and Mr Davenport officiated there, by
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leave of their own church, as did other episco- pal ministers. In May, 1740, Mr Davenport, who had so recently been made Assistant at King's Chapel, accepted the invitation of the congregation of Trinity Church to become their pastor, and he was accordingly inducted as their first rector.
To prove still further that episcopacy was then prevailing as it has never since prevailed here, at a vestry meeting holden on the 18th of Septem- ber of the same year, 1740, the following vote was passed to consider of the rebuilding the King's Chapel. " Voted that a Committee of six persons of this Church shall be joined with the minister and church wardens, and shall be chosen to consider of a method of raising a sub- scription for the rebuilding the King's Chappel." The measures which were taken in pursuance of this vote, and which resulted, in the erection of the elegant and spacious church in which we now worship, will be considered, with other matters, in the next discourse.
PERIOD SIXTH. 1
RESIGNATION OF MR PRICE. - SETTLEMENT OF DR CA- NER. - BUILDING OF THE STONE CHAPEL.
THE GOD OF HEAVEN. HE WILL PROSPER US; THEREFORE WE HIS SERVANTS WILL ARISE AND BUILD. - Nek. i. 20.
IN consequence of the vote passed in 1740 to consider of the rebuilding of the Chapel, William Shirley, Esq. a warden of the church, and after- wards Governor of the State, was appointed to draw up a subscription paper, which he did, and headed the list himself with the liberal sum of one hundred pounds sterling. Other subscriptions to a considerable amount were obtained, and Peter Faneuil, Esq .* was constituted Treasurer of the building fund. Owing to his death, however, and some other circumstances, the business received a temporary check, and was suffered to rest for several years.
On the removal of Mr Davenport to Trinity Church, the Bishop of London was applied to for a successor to fill his place at the Chapel ..
* The same who gave to the town the famous hall called by his name.
THE NEWBERRY LIBRARY
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The Rev. Stephen Rowe, or Roe, was mention- ed, who was at that time a minister in South Carolina, but unable to stay there on account of his health. The applicants spoke of him as a person who, they were sure, would be agreeable to them. To use their own expressions, they " begged leave to insinuate that they had once heard him read divine service, and preach, and well approved his talent therein. Yet finally," they say, "we rest ourselves in your Lordship's wisdom and goodness, properly and seasonably to supply us."
Mr Roe, after some delay, was appointed to the situation, and entered on his duties in 1741 ; but he did not remain long at the Chapel, nor do I learn anything of him or his departure from the records.
The ecclesiastical condition of the church at this period experienced some important changes. Mr Price had not been long settled as rector, be- fore differences began to spring up between him and his congregation ; the short account of which is, that he presumed too much on his place and dignity of Commissary, and they were growing jealous of their congregational rights and privi- leges. In May, 1734, he communicated his in- tention of leaving the church and returning to England, and no regret was manifested by his
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people at the prospect of losing him. He took his passage on board a vessel bound to London, and actually set sail in her; but being detained at Nantasket by contrary winds, he came up to Boston, requested the wardens to call a vestry meeting, and announced his resolution to stay with his church. Whereupon a list of his former pre- tensions was made out, and on his agreeing to give them all up, it was voted by the congregation, on the 26th of May, that he should be Rector and minister of the Church as before. The six arti- cles thus consented to by Mr Price, serve as an explanation of the principal causes of contention between him and his people. They are as follows.
" 1. To have no pretentions to the perquisites of the money for burying under the church.
2. To have no pretentions in chuseing a Church Warden.
3. To have no pretentions to the Church Stock.
4. To have no pretentions to the Church Li- brary ; only the use of them.
5. To preach on Sunday afternoons ; when it can be done.
6. To make due entries of the Church mar- riages, christenings and burials in the book provi- ded for that purpose."
That Mr Price should ever have made such
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pretensions as are here resigned, appears singular to us, with our present customs and habits of thinking. But it must be recollected that Mr Price came over from England, and took posses- sion of the Chapel, with English notions of a rec- tor's prerogatives, and that some of the conces- sions which he was obliged to make, were extort- ed by the innovating spirit of the church. With regard to the appointment of wardens, for instance, it would seem that Mr Myles, the predecessor of Mr Price, exercised the privilege of nominating to that office ; for it is recorded, that in the year 1726 he informed the vestry that Charles Ap- thorp refused to serve as Church Warden, and nominated Mr Thomas Selby, who was chosen. I have been told that the English custom is, that the Rector nominate one of the wardens, and the vestry the other. But Mr Price undoubtedly as- sumed too much, and by thus rendering himself unpopular, lost some privileges which by quiet- ness he might have retained.
Several other troubles of a serious nature arose between the parties, and reference was occasion- ally had to the Bishop of London. At length, on Thanksgiving day, Nov. 27, 1746, Mr Price signi- fied to the congregation his final intention of going to England, and quitting the rectorship and cure of the church. The congregation then took the bold
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and unprecedented step of choosing a committee to consider of a fit person in holy orders, and to recommend him as such, not to the Bishop of London, but to the congregation, to be appointed Rector of the King's Chapel, in the room of Mr Price. On the evening of the same day, this committee met at the Royal Exchange Tavern, and agreed unanimously to recommend the Rev. Mr Henry Caner, minister of the church in Fair- field, Connecticut, to the congregation of the Chapel, to be their rector. At an adjourned meeting of the congregation, on Sunday the 30th, Mr Price's letter of resignation, and the report of the committee having been read, the question was put, " Whether wee . should choose a minister to succeed the Reva Mr Commissary Price from amongst the clergy in holy orders in New Eng- land, or write to his Lordship our Diocesan, and other friends in Old England to procure us a min- ister from thence ; and it was carried by a great majority that wee should choose a minister from amongst the Clergy in New England." After this, the congregation proceeded to the choice of a minister, and the Rev. Henry Caner was chosen by a great majority.
This independent line of conduct shows a wide departure from the old course, which had always pointed hitherto in the direction of London. The
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assistant minister or lecturer, however, was ac- knowledged to be at the disposal of the Diocesan, because his salary came from abroad; and the church were regular in their applications to the Bishop for the appointment of this officer on every occasion of vacancy.
The customary letters having passed between the congregation and Mr Caner, of invitation on their part, and acceptance on his, he removed from Fairfield to Boston, and the day succeeding his arrival, Saturday, April 11, 1747, was con- ducted to the Chapel by the Rev. Mr Commis- sary Price, and there put in possession of the church after the same manner and form which had been observed in the case of the latter gentle- man ; no mention being made of the Bishop of London, however, throughout the whole affair .*
The terms on which he was settled were, that
* From the records. " The Reverd Mr Henry Caner came to town on ffriday Evening, and the next morning, April 11, 1747, about Eleven o'clock in the forenoon, he was conducted to the King's Chapel in Boston by the Reverd Mr Commissary Price, the Church Wardens and others of the Comittee appointed as above, who all went out of the Church, the Church Wardens at the door delivering the key of the Church to the Reverd Mr Caner, who locking himself in the Church, tolled the Bell, and then unlocked the Door, receiving the Church Wardens and Comittee &c. into the Church again, who wished him joy upon his haveing Posses- sion of the Church."
-
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he was to be paid the long established salary of one hundred and ten pounds sterling per annum, at that time equal to eleven hundred pounds old tenor ; that he was to share the public services of the church with the Assistant for the time be- ing, and receive all perquisites as the Rector's due.
In the summer of this year, 1747, the Rev. Commissary Price sailed for England in the Mer- maid man of war. Though he had not lived on the happiest terms with his people, his talents were good and his morals irreproachable. His great failing was, that he could not accommodate himself to the country to which he had come, and was always wishing to live more like a dignitary of the church at home than the habits of this country would bear. He published two sermons here, if no more. One was preached in January, 1733, on occasion of the death of John Jekyll, Esq. collector of Customs ; and the other on the death of the queen, in March, 1738. The former of these I have seen. The style is considerably studied and ornate, and the sentiments are good and well suited to the occasion. It is such a ser- mon as would be heard with interest at any time by any congregation.
Mr Caner entered on his duties, as Rector of King's Chapel, with a high reputation. He was
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educated at Yale College, and became a candi- date for episcopal orders two or three years after the ordination of Doctors Johnson and Cutler. " In 1727 he went to England for ordination, and the Society appointed him their missionary to Fairfield. His occasional services at Norwalk greatly recommended the Church; and it was not long before he had a respectable congregation there, as well as at Fairfield." * In Boston he was considered as a more than commonly good preacher ; and his congregation at the Chapel, essaying to turn his popularity to their advantage, were led into an unpleasant altercation with the Assistant or Lecturer, the Rev. Charles Brock- well, who had been appointed to succeed Mr Roe in 1747, and who had previously been min- ister of the churches at Scituate and Salem. Mr Brockwell, according to the appointment of the Bishop of London, was "Lecturer or Afternoon Preacher ;" and of course his time of officiating at the Chapel was the afternoon. But the week- ly collection, on which the church mainly depend- ed for the rector's salary, was taken in the after- noon ; and it was the desire of the congregation that Mr Caner, as the most attractive preacher, should officiate at that season, rather than in the morning, which more particularly belonged to
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