USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Saugus > History of Lynn, Essex county, Massachusetts: including Lynnfield, Saugus, Swampscot, and Nahant > Part 10
USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Nahant > History of Lynn, Essex county, Massachusetts: including Lynnfield, Saugus, Swampscot, and Nahant > Part 10
USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Lynnfield > History of Lynn, Essex county, Massachusetts: including Lynnfield, Saugus, Swampscot, and Nahant > Part 10
USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Swampscott > History of Lynn, Essex county, Massachusetts: including Lynnfield, Saugus, Swampscot, and Nahant > Part 10
USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Lynn > History of Lynn, Essex county, Massachusetts: including Lynnfield, Saugus, Swampscot, and Nahant > Part 10
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[Had Mr. Lewis thoroughly examined and maturely consid- ered this subject, I am sure he would not have left the foregoing just as it is; for without explanation it is likely to lead the mind of the reader who is not acquainted with the ecclesiastical history of the times in some of its minuter details, to an errone- ous conclusion. Does it not appear as if lie would have it un- derstood that the settlers, generally, were Episcopalians, or Churchmen, in the sense now given to those terms ? And that being so, would it be impertinent to ask how it happened that they made no attempt to establish a churchly mode of worship I*
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here, but immediately set about forming Congregational socie- ties on the broadest principles of Independency - how it hap- pened that they rejected the liturgy of the Church and prohib- ited by law some of her cherished observances ? They gloried in the name of Puritan as distinguishing from Churchman. They levied taxes for the support of Congregational worship. They enacted a law forbidding that any one not in regular standing with some Congregational church should be entitled to vote or even be permitted to take the freeman's oath. They re-ordained, according the Congregational form, some who had received Episcopal ordination at home, and persecuted the few ministers of the Church who from time to time appeared among them and refused to recant their Episcopal vows. It is true, that in the outset there was a marked difference between the Plymouth and Massachusetts settlers. But that difference had been obliterated long before the political union of 1692. And an accomplished historian, says that "wherever the Independ- ents possessed power, as in New England, they showed them- selves to be as intolerant as any of their opponents." If all the inhabitants of Lynn, excepting Mr. Bachiler and his six adherents, were Episcopalians, how happened it that they at once zeal- ously lent him their aid in forming the church here? Good Churchmen would as soon have thought of fraternizing with Hugh Peters as Mr. Bachiler. His ardent temperament and remembered wrongs led him to manifest such envenomed oppo- sition to the Church that it is not clearly seen how her devout children could have been attracted to his fold.
[But our difficulties will very much lessen if we bear in mind the fact that there for some time existed in the Church itself a considerable Puritan element -that Episcopacy, even, for a time was not made a test- that some high ecclesiastics were in- clined to a Presbytery, and others to Independency or Congre- gationalism. Nor was it till the vigorous arm of Laud interposed that the integrity of the Church was restored. At the time the Massachusetts emigration commenced there were many decided Puritans in the Church, some of the more sanguine of whom had probably once hoped to Puritanize her, and who were yet fond of calling her their " dear mother." They had not been op- pressed, and had no ground for complaint. Many of these came
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over with the "rigid separatists." And were it not in accord- ance with the recognized tendency of the human mind to pro- , ceed to extremes when it recedes from an established order, we might well be astonished at the apparent delight some of them took, when safely here, in heaping indignities upon the very name of their " dear mother." It will be instructive to those who have never given this subject much attention, to present an illustration or two of their seeming disposition to proceed as far as they decently could in raising and fostering prejudices against the Church.
[The Church had always observed Christmas as the most note- worthy festival of the year - it was the anniversary of the natal day of the great founder of our faith - the anniversary of an event which the very angels of heaven came down to celebrate- those sinless spirits whose majestic anthem rang over the starlit plains of Judea, and being taken up by the Church had been continued on through all the centuries. But her " children " here in these western wilds thought fit to turn their backs upon her holy example. They went to the extent of forbidding, by law, the observance of Christmas. Whoever abstained from his ordinary labor on that day, subjected himself to the liability of being punished for a misdemeanor.
[The Church regarded matrimony as a religious rite. They did not elevate it to the position of a sacrament but invested it with a peculiar sanctity. But in Massachusetts, from an early date, ministers were not allowed to perform the wedding cere- mony. Magistrates and special appointees alone could discharge the agreeable duty. It was not till 1686 that the present cus- tom of authorizing ministers to solemnize marriages became established. Reducing it to the incidents of a mere civil con- tract was no doubt the occasion of divers evils. And it is not remarkable that the effect was so long felt that even in 1719 the Boston ministers testified that weddings were times of "riotous irregularities."
[The prayers for the dead and the whole burial service of the Church were solemn and affecting. But our good fathers would not have even prayers at funerals. The first time that such a thing occurred in the colony, appears to have been in August, 1685, and the funeral was that of Rev. Mr. Adams of Roxbury.
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And the distasteful custom was of very slow growth. I have, indeed, seen it somewhere stated that a prayer was never made at a funeral in Boston, before 1766; meaning, of course, among such as adhered to puritanical principles. It could not, how- ever, have been exactly so, for a Boston newspaper, printed in 1730, speaking of the funeral of Mrs. Sarah Byfield says, " Be- fore carrying out the corpse, a funeral prayer was made by one of the pastors of the Old Church, which, though a custom in the country towns, is a singular instance in this place, but it is wished may prove a leading example to the general practice of so Christian and decent a custom." There was a law passed in 1727 forbidding funerals on Sundays, excepting in extraordi- nary cases; or by special leave. These things show how little sanctity our Puritan fathers attached to the burial of the dead. And, following upon this, it is found that, especially during the first half of the last century, there was often great parade made at funerals, particularly those of the rich. Gloves, gold rings, hat-bands, and mourning scarfs, were frequently presented to those in attendance. Near friends acted as bearers, carrying the body on a bier on the shoulders, there being relays as occa- sion required. In the procession males and females did not walk together, but those of the sex of the deceased walked nearest the remains. Officers with staffs and mourning badges accompanied the procession. On the return from the grave, a liberal entertainment was served, at which wines and intoxi- cating liquors, pipes and tobacco were freely provided. And too often the drinking led to shameful rioting. Could they have been guilty of such proceedings had they first engaged in the solemn services appointed by the Church for such affecting occasions ? Lechford, writing in 1641, says: " At burials, no- thing is read, nor any funeral sermon made, but all the neigh- borhood, or a good company of them, come together by tolling of the bell, and carry the dead solemnly to his grave and there stand by him while he is buried. The ministers are most com- monly present." This was written before the more extravagant customs began to prevail. But a most remarkable thing about it is how those good old divines who, if they had a passion it was for delivering sermons, could have let such golden oppor. tunities pass unimproved.
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[And this leads to a remark or two concerning public worship. The Church considered the sermon, that being merely the ex- pression of one man's views of religious truth and duty, as of minor importance - a mere appendage to the worship. The reading of the Scriptures, the prayers, the psalms, the anthems, the solemn litany, formed the important part of the services. At first, indeed, the sermons were not delivered during the hours of worship, but at different times, of which notice was given. And though it was censurable not to attend worship, absence at sermon-time was no ground for formal complaint - excepting, perhaps, in the mind of the preacher himself. But those docile children of that " dear mother," when they found themselves safe in this western Canaan just reversed matters. They made the sermon the leading feature at the sanctuary, which they preferred to call a meeting-house, rather than a church, and reduced the little semblance of worship they re- tained, to a mere appendage to the sermon. The Congrega- tional societies of the present day have widely departed, in almost every respect, from the usages of those of earlier time. But is it not true that, as a general rule, they still adhere to the old way of giving the sermon an undue prominence - of making their sanctuaries rather houses of preaching than houses of prayer or places of worship? Without a liturgy, it is perhaps difficult, if not impossible, to satisfactorily obviate this. It seems almost necessarily to follow from the Congregational mode - from all modes where the extemporary element prevails and the worship cannot be responsive. A new order of things seems, however, to be slowly coming about. Some societies, feeling a pressing need, have recently instituted the vesper service, as it is called, and a few others have actually adopted liturgies.
[It appears by a writer who will presently be quoted, that they did not always have even a prayer at their Sunday services. And the Bible was not read. Such a thing as the reading of the Bible in a New England Congregational meeting-house was hard- ly known before the first part of the last century, save in a few instances, where the ministers, having been bred in the Church, could not bring their minds at once to dispense with what they had been taught was a matter of the first importance. As
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early as 1699, however, Rev. Mr. Colman, of Boston, read it in his church. . And he even repeated the Lord's prayer, after an introductory one of his own. But many were strongly preju- diced against his innovations. The Ratio Disciplina says that in 1726, the practice of reading the sacred volume had obtained in many churches without giving offence. It does not appear when the Scriptures began to be read in the church at Lynn. But the First Church of Salem adopted the custom in 1736. It was not, however, till many years after, that the other churches of that place followed her good example - the Tabernacle in 1804 and the South Church in 1806. The neighboring church of Medford, in 1759, voted " to read the Scriptures in the con- gregation." Mr. Holmes thus remarks, 1720, in relation to the discontinuance of the reading of the Bible at public worship by the Puritan churches: "Why this practice should be discontinued by any of the disciples of Jesus, I see no reason. I am persua- ded it cannot be alleged to be any part of our reformation from popish superstition." But what other reason had they to allege- excepting, perhaps, that their " dear mother" made almost con- tinuous use of the sacred Word in her services ?
[The Church had always deemed it honorable to have her sanctuaries in as impressive and beautiful a style of architecture as circumstances would allow, and so appointed as to impart to the mind a due sense of the sanctity of God's house. This, besides showing a becoming respect for sacred things, was surely to be approved; for the loftiest impressions are perhaps as often conveyed to the mind through the medium of the sight as any other sense. And the proprieties of the sacred precincts were carefully looked to. Kneeling was the required attitude in prayer. The music was that best adapted to inspire devo- tional feelings and accord with the passing season. The solemn measures of the Lenten days and the joyous Easter strains were calculated to lead the devout mind to contemplations the most fruitful of spiritual good. The ancient chants which, century after century, had formed a stirring portion of the service, swelled, in concert with the deep organ harmony, through the cathedral arches and in the humble church upon the village green. And the chimes from her gray towers called many a wandering thought from the cares and vexations of the world to rest and
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holy meditation. But with what eye did those severely matter- of-fact Puritan settlers view these things-things that their " dear mother" deemed important adjuncts in sustaining the religious character in her children ? They would not recognize the forty Lenten days, but instituted, by civil appointment, an annual fast of a single day; and Easter became an unknown season. The organ was to them an instrument of heathenish device, and chanting an old mummery. At prayer, instead of humbly kneeling, they stood ostentatiously erect. Their meet- ing-houses, even where means were abundant, were but rude structures, often surmounted by some strange image, as if in mockery of the cross, that emblem with which the Church so loved to adorn her consecrated edifices. And they viewed with disdain attempts to reach the heart in other ways than by rea- soning unadorned.
[There is a merry New England ballad in a collection pub- lished at London, in 1719, edited by T. D'Urfey, which contains a sort of running commentary on some of the Puritan customs, in matters such as we have been considering; though the piece is thought by Dr. Harris to be much older than the date of its publication in that collection. It was evidently written by a good natured Churchman who viewed things with an understand -; ing eye; and we extract as follows :
Well, that Night I slept till near Prayer time, . Next Morning I wonder'd to hear no Bells chime; At which I did ask, and the Reason I found, 'Twas because they had ne'er a Bell in the Town.
At last being warned, to Church I repairs, Where I did think certain we should have some Pray'rs; But the parson there no such matter did teach, They scorn'd to Pray, for all one could Preach.
The first thing they did, a Psalm they did Zing, Ise pluck'd out my Psalm-Book I with me did bring ; And tumbled to seek him 'cause they caw'd him by's name, But they'd got a new Zong to the Tune of the same.
When Sermon was ended, was a child to baptise, 'Bout Zixteen years old, as Volks did zurmise ; He had neither Godfather nor Godmother, yet was quiet and still, But the Priest durst not cross him, for fear of ill will.
-
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Ah, Sirrah, thought I, and to Dinner Ise went, And gave the Lord Thanks for what he had sent. Next day was a Wedding, the Brideman my Friend Did kindly invite me, so thither Ise wend.
But this, above all, me to wonder did bring, To see Magistrate marry them, and had ne'er a Ring ; Ise thought they would call me the Woman to give, But I think the Man stole her, they ask'd no man leave.
[But it must be highly gratifying to the Churchman of this day to observe how many of the old prejudices against his revered mother have disappeared. Who, now, even among the sons of the staunchest Puritan settlers is disposed to cast con- tempt upon her fervid outpourings at the joyous Christmas- tide ? Who is not ready to commend her efforts to keep the glad sound of the gospel constantly ringing in every ear? And who, even, is not ready to concede that she possesses a liturgy and order worthy of the warmest affections of the Chris- tian heart.
[Notwithstanding the apparent belief of Mr. Lewis that the first settlers of Lynn, with the exception of about half a dozen, were devout Churchmen, it is yet true that the Church was of very slow growth here. No attempt was made to gather a congregation, till 1819. And the small number who then called themselves of the fold presently dispersed and joined other worshiping bodies. And how is it even now, when we have become a city of more than twenty thousand people ? Why, we have one Church - St. Stephen's - numbering not above a hundred communicants, and a Chapel-St. Andrew's - which is open only in the warm season, for the accommodation of non- residents. If the great body of the settlers had been Episco- palians a different state of things might rationally have been expected.
[Indeed, notwithstanding the professed reverence of those early comers for their "dear mother," the Episcopal Church was of slow growth in all parts of New England, the prejudices against her constantly exhibiting themselves. Rev. William Blaxton, an Episcopal clergyman, was the first Christian settler of Boston. He sat down there, solitary and alone, in 1625 or '6. He was a man of great learning, and seems to have been fond
PECULIAR CUSTOMS AND DOINGS IN RELIGIOUS MATTERS. 109
of retirement and study. In or about the year 1634 he removed to the vicinity of Providence, and died 26 May, 1675, having made no apparent impression in favor of his cherished faith, though he had the fame of having been bred at Emanuel, which was called the Puritan college. Moses Brown, in one of his manuscript letters, says : "Rev. Mr. Blackstone, an Episco. sold the land of Boston, in 1631, and removed to Blaxton River and settled six miles north of Providence and Rehoboth. He had a great library, was a great student. There is a hill now called Study Hill, on which he loved to walk for contemplation. He rode his bull, for want of a horse, to Boston and Providence, to Smith's in Narragt. He sometimes came to Providence and preached there; the first time to one man, two women, and a number of children whom he invited and collected around him by throwing apples to them." This was certainly preaching under difficulties. But the devoted ministers of the Church here, at that period, were subjected to many such experiences. Gov. Dudley, as late as 1702, writes that there are in " Massa- chusetts, or New England, seventy thousand souls, in seventy towns, all Dissenters, that have ministers and schools of their own persuasion, except one congregation of the Church of England, at Boston, where there are two ministers." And Rev. George Keith, who was the first missionary sent over here by the Church of England "Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts," and whose appearance at Lynn, where he gave vigorous battle to the Quakers, will be noticed under date 1702, says, writing at about the same time Dudley wrote, " There is no Church nor Church of England school eastward of the province of New York, viz: Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, and New Hampshire, except at Boston, where there is one Church, consisting of a large con- gregation, having two ministers, Mr. Myles and Mr. Bridge, and one in Rhode Island, consisting of a large congregation and one minister, viz: Mr. Lockier, and another in Braintry, which has no minister." Such was the prosperity of the Church, in New England, about three quarters of a century after the emigrants " with much sadness of heart and many tears " in their eyes, began to arrive hither from the land where their " dear mother " specially dwelt.
J
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[That the Church of England, as a branch of the government, was guilty of persecution, in some instances, may not be denied. But the Episcopal Church, when established here, was divested of temporal power; and has stood as free from any just charge of attempting to tyrannize as any Christian body ever known upon the American continent.
[Let it not be said, however, that the Puritans accomplished little or no good. They restored much of the excellent that had been lost among the lumber of the dark, superstitious, and infidel ages. They gave to the Christian world, it may almost literally be said, a Sabbath. For before their time the Lord's day had been regarded as a festival, instituted by the early Christians in commemoration of the Resurrection. But they, while at home, in the bosom of their " dear mother," and here, with their backs turned upon her, persisted in investing the day with all the sanctity and incidents of the day proclaimed holy amid the lightnings of Sinai. And they succeeded in lead- ing the Church herself to adopt their views. And in this coun- try, at this day, no body of Christians is more careful in the observance of the Lord's day as a Sabbath than the Episcopal Church. And did not the Puritans, here, with an energy and wisdom unknown before, address themselves to the intellectual culture of mankind, establishing schools in every quarter, where to the poor as well as the rich were dispensed the inestimable blessings of education ? Let us not unduly magnify their er- rors -let us not eternally discourse about their hanging Qua- kers, persecuting Baptists and pressing witches- but rather let us honor ourselves by imitating their sterling integrity and endeavoring to perpetuate the noble institutions they founded.]
CHAPTER II.
ANNALS.
1629.
LYNN is one of the earliest towns planted in Massachusetts. Its settlement was begun in 1629. Among the authorities for assigning the settlement to this year, is the Rev. Samuel Dan- forth's almanac for the year 1647. He gives a list of the first towns settled in this state, to which he prefixes these words : "The time when these townes following began - Lynn, 1629." By several ancient manuscripts, it appears that the settlement must have commenced as early as the first of June.
The first white men known to have been inhabitants of Lynn, were EDMUND INGALLS and his brother FRANCIS INGALLS. A record preserved in the family of the former says, "Mr. Edmund Ingalls came from Lincolnshire, in England, to Lynn, in 1629.". He was a farmer, and settled in the eastern part of the town, near a small pond in Fayette street. The place where his house stood is still pointed out by his descendants. He had a malt house near the margin of the pond. When the lands were divi- ded, in 1638, there were apportioned "to Edmund and Francis Ingalls, upland and meadow, 120 acres." He was accidentally drowned, in March, 1648, by falling with his horse through the old Saugus river bridge, on Boston street; for which the Gen- eral Court paid one hundred pounds ($444) to his children. His estate was valued at £135 8s. 10d., including " house and lands, £50." The name of his wife was Ann, and he had nine children, six of whom were born in England. 1. Robert, who inherited his father's "house and houselot." 2. Elizabeth. 3. Faith, who married Andrew Allen. 4. John, to whom his father gave "the house and ground that was Jeremy ffits, (Fitch,) lying by the meeting-house, and that three acres land he hath in England." 5. Sarah, who married William Bitner. 6. Henry who was born in 1627, and removed to Andover, where he died in 1719, aged 92 years. A descendant of his, Capt. Henry In-
(111)
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galls, died in 1803, aged 84 years. About a year before his death he added the following note to the family genealogy : " Mr. Henry Ingals, from whom all these spring, was born in the year 1627, and he died in the year 1719, who lived ninety- two years, and two months after his death I, Henry Ingals, was Born, who have lived eighty-three years, So that we two Henry Ingals hath Lived on this Earth one hundred and seventy-five years." 7. Samuel. 8. Mary. 9. Joseph. The descendants of Mr. Edmund Ingalls, in this and other towns, are numerous and respectable, and several of them eminent in the learned profes- sions. [One or two interesting particulars appear in the peti- tion of the children of Mr. Ingalls for redress on the loss of their father. The paper reads as follows: "The humble petition of Robert Ingalls with the rest of his brethren and sisters, being eight in number, humbly sheweth, that whereas your poor peti- tioners father hath been deprived of life by the insufficiency of Lynne Bridge, so called, to the great impoverishinge of your poore petitioners mother and themselves, and there being a Court order that any person soe dyeinge through such insuffi- ciency of any bridge in the countrye, that there should be an hundred pounds forfeit to the next heire, may it therefore please this honorable Court to take your poore petitioners case into consideration."]
FRANCIS INGALLS, brother of Edmund - was born in England in 1601. He was a tanner, and lived at Swampscot. He built a tannery on Humfrey's brook, where it is crossed by a stone bridge in Burrill street. I saw the vats before they were taken up in 1825. This was the first tannery in New England. [And perhaps its establishment gave the first direction to the great business of the place -shoemaking. When the leather was made, it was natural enough to turn attention to means for di- rectly applying it to the common necessities of life.]
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