USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : containing carefully prepared histories of every city and town in the county, Vol. I > Part 46
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" South Cambridge, December ye 4th, 1744. At a meet- ing of the Inhabitants being subscribers only, - Captain Dana chosen Moderator, - Voted, - To chinse a committee to lay out the Pue lots, and set a price upon them, -dignify the same and Project a method to settle, or sell the Same to the subscribers, and make report at the next meet- ing. Voted, - That Thomas Dana, W" Dana, and Josiah Brown be of this Committee. December 13th, upon ad- journment, Report of last named Committee was accepted. Ebenezer Smith, Thomas Dana, W- Dana, Josiah Browu and Thos. Sparhawk were chosen to make dis- tribution of Pues. Voted, - That Messrs. Nathaniel Cun- ningham, Henry Smith, Caleb Dana, and Madam Brown have the choice of a Pew each. Adjourned to Thursday Je 20th of this Inst. December at 2 o'clock, afternoon to the school-honse to receive the report of the committee appointed to make Distribution of the Pew lots."
" December 25th, on adjournment, Voted, - That those which have, or shall accept of Pew lots at the several prizes they are set in the plan, pay their money to the meeting- house committee, or some one of them. Voted, - That no man build huis Pew untill he has paid for his Pue lot. Then Voted, - That they who have Pue lots, pay for ym by the last of January, or it shall be in the power of the Com- mittee to Dispose of it."
" February ye 26, 1744-5, - Captain Benjamin Dana Moderator, - Voted, - That Deacon Bridgham have the first Pew on the left hand of the middle alley, adjoining to Mr. John Ellis' Pew. Put to vote, - whether the sub- scribers will make abatement upon the pew spots between the East and West doors and the men and women's stairs, and it passed in the affermative. Then Voted, - That three pounds be abated npon each of the Four Pews."
Once in possession of a church edifice, the in-
habitants on this side of the river were more intent than ever to become an ecclesiastical parish. Un- til legally made such they could not settle a minis- ter, and must pay taxes to the old First Precinct Parish, of which parish the law held them to be members. This much-coveted privilege must come from the General Court. Petitions presented as early as 1748 were, owing partly to natural op- position from the First Parish and elsewhere, and even to some dissent from here, refused. We in- sert the following petition because, while present- ing a fuller statement of the causes for separation than others, it is so simple and reasonable, and in spirit almost pathetic. We must remember that a portion of North Harvard Street, which now we count so easy and pleasant a walk to the Colleges, was, in the winters of early years, so encumbered with floating ice from the rapid Charles River as to be often dangerous for travel. Many, in going from Market Square on this side, even in light sleighs, preferred the circuitons course by Newton Corner and Watertown to the shorter but ob- structed causeway.
" To His Excellency Thomas Hutchinson Esq., Governor- in-Chief in and over His Majesty's Province of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, - The Honor- ahle His Majesty's Conncil and the House of Repre- seutatives now convened and sitting in the Town of Boston this 26th day of January, 1774.
" The Petition of the Inhabitants of the First Parish in Cambridge Living on the South side of Charles River, humbly sheweth, - That your Petitioners have for a loug time Laboured under many disadvantages and Great in- convenience in not having a Gospel minister settled witlı them, -which gives them Occasion to intreat that you will take into Consideration their Sitnation, State and Cir- cumstances, - and that Your Excellency and Honors may have a true knowledge thereof, we beg leave to inform you that about forty Years Past, the Gospel was first Preached amongst us, it being impracticable when the tides were high, and the Snow and Ice lodged on the Causeway Leading to the Town of Cambridge, to pass aud repass ; - being then few in uumber to what we are now we Pur- chased a house to meet In, for Publick Worship; and In about ten years after, at our own Expense, Built a house for that Purpose; and about the year '60 we applied to the then General Assembly that they would take our un- happy Situation into their Consideration and relieve us in Such manner as should seem best ; but the town of Cam- bridge making considerable opposition to onr Proceedings, the General Assembly saw fit to decline acting upon it and giving us relief in the way we are now Seeking it, but Or- dered that £52 per annum be paid ont of the Parish rate for the support of Preaching on the South Side of the river ; and annexed part of Charlestown aud Watertown to the first parish of Cambridge; but we, finding that Sum not sufficient to the support of an ordained minister, have
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for more than thirty years, been without, and, also, have been put to much difficulty to get an Ordained Minister to Baptise our Children ; and have never had the Ordinance of the Lord's Supper administered amongst ns; and we apprehend that many of our Children that are arrived at man's cstate, have never seen that Ordinance administered ; and notwithstanding we have a most worthy minister, Doctor Appleton, on the other Side of the River, yet his great age and his ofteu Indispositions prevent him (as he has signified In his letter to us) from affording us that advice, and instruction he otherwise willingly would, and which he is sensible that we often stand in need of, -for many times, when our friends are upon their Death Beds, they have no minister Either to Pray with them, or afford them any advice, or iustruetion in their dying moments. We are also deprived of having a discreet minister to set any Example before, and instruet our Children in the knowledge that is necessary to Eternal Salvation; and while we remain in this unsettled state we disconrage many Sober families from Settling amongst us. - For these and many other weighty reasons that may be offered, we intreat your Excelleney and Honors that you will authorize us to settle a Gospel Minister amongst us and also order that the whole society be taxed for the Support of two ministers to be paid out of the Parish Treasury. But if that shall not be thought most for the benefit of the Parish, then we pray that the Inhabitants together with all the Lands on the south side of the river, may be Set off as the River runs as far as the bridge as a distinet Parish, or Pre- ciuet. And your Petitioners, as In duty bound, Shall Ever Pray.
JOHN DENNIE, ABIJAH LEARNED, ELIPHALET ROBBINS, NATHANIEL SPARHAWK, JAMES BRYANT, .
A Committee in behalf of the Society on the South Side of the River.
" In the House of Representatives February 21, 1774, on the Petition of John Dennie and others. In behalf of the Inhabitants of the Southerly Part of the first Parish in Cambridge -- Resolved that the petitioners notify the first Parish in Cambridge by serving the Clerk of said parish with an attested copy of their petition and this order, thirty days at least before the next session of the General Court, that they may there show cause, if any they have, on the first Tuesday of the Said Next Session of the General Court, why the prayer of Said Petition in one, or the other instance, should not be Granted.
" In Council, February 22d, Read and Coneurred."
By an act of the General Court passed May 1, 1779, entitled "an Act for dividing and setting off the southerly part of the First Parish in the Town of Cambridge, in the County of Middlesex, into a separate Precinct," the much desired object was obtained. A few families on the south side, named in the act, who preferred not to be separated, were specially exempted from all charges to the South, or Third Parish, and allowed to remain members of the North, or First Parish. .
During the interval between the erection of the church in 1744 and the ordination of the first minister in 1784 the pulpit was supplied by various clergymen, chiefly from Cambridge. We have seen that for twelve or fifteen years before the meeting-house was built religious services were held on this side of the river in a private house. A file of ancient receipts for sums paid officiating clergymen for services rendered has been preserved. These venerable vouchers are interesting in them- selves, in this lapse of years, as autographis of some few among the preachers enumerated who subse- quently attained celebrity ; but chiefly interesting for the varying phraseology employed by these literary men to designate this portion of Cam- bridge. All the forms of expression which we have quoted near the opening of this article as familiar names of the place are used, to the almost entire exclusion of the expression " Little Cam- bridge." Indeed, one expression we find in these papers not before recognized anywhere in our search amidst Cambridge records. The voucher embodying it runs thus : "Cambridge, February 23d, 1750. Received of Mr. Samuel Phipps, the sum of Forty Pounds, Old T'enor in full for preach- ing to a Society in Cambridge." Above the words, " Society in Cambridge," are carefully interlined the words " one quarter of." So we should read, "in a quarter or section of Cambridge."
These stated pulpit stipends are enumerated in pounds, shillings, and pence, and vary with the changing value of money in the Revolutionary period. The forty pounds just cited cover ser- viees for several Sabbaths, as the usual remunera- tion was about five pounds, Old Tenor, for a single Sabbath. Would space allow, the statement of these exact sums might be interesting to some modern candidates for the ministry, thus instructed on what terms even learned tutors and presidents of the college labored " earnestly and painstak- ingly," morning and afternoon on the Lord's Day.
The name of Rev. William Bentley, D. D., after- wards the distinguished minister of Salem, written with the clearness and fulness of John Hancock, is among these signatures. All the ministers thus officiating, and here enumerated, were graduates, like him, of Harvard. Rev. John Carnes, Rev. Belcher Hancock, tutor, fellow, librarian, Rev. Samnel Fayerweather, bearing the honors of four colleges besides his Alma Mater, and who, in addition to preaching, tanght the school here in the winter of 1754-55, Rev. Job Whitney, Rev.
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John Mellen, Jr., tutor, Rev. Nathan Fisk, D. D., | Rev. Howard Bezalcel, tutor, Rev. Henry Wight, Rev. Enoch Ward, both teacher and frequent preacher, Rev. Edward Bass, subsequently of the Episcopal Church, Rev. Samuel Foxcroft, Rev. Josiah Cotton, Rev. John Willard, D. D., Rev. Thomas Jones, Rev. Edward Brooks, librarian, Rev. Jonas Merriam, and Rev. Stephen Minot, with many others, fill up the pulpit record of these waiting years. Presidents Edward Holyoke and Joseph Willard, of the University, came frequently " across the river" to preach, and their signatures are with the foregoing.
The ancient records allude naturally to these ministerial services. Committees are regularly chosen to " Provide Preaching and look after the school." Such offices, too, are statedly filled, as im- plied in the following votes relating to selecting the tune and lining off the psalm: " March 21, 1749 - 50. Toted, That Mr. Wm. Brown be desired to read the Psalm on the Sabbath for the future." " March 29, 1751. Toted, That Mr. Thos. Park be desiredl to set the Psalmn, and Mr. William Dana to read it, the year ensuing." And that it might be fully certified, amidst all this preaching and psalm- singing, that the carnal wants of these ministers, who came " across the river," were duly provided for, the following record, repeated at earlier and later periods of this hitherto pastorless church, has been preserved : "November 30, 1767. Voted, That Mr. James Bryant entertain the ministers at a quarter of a dollar per day." If the price of articles of food which go to make up the average Sunday dinner of to-day ruled in those earlier times, no better regulation could have been devised to repel drowsiness from those college tutors and presidents and their brother preachers while the sands in the pulpit hourglass were, perhaps, run- ning out for the second time.
The successful movement for gathering a church in this preeinet dates from May 12, 1780. We learn from the records of the First Church of Cambridge that, " At a meeting of the Brethren of the First Church in Cambridge, under the above date, a petition from the Brethren and Sisters on the south side of the River signifying their desire to be dismissed and recommended to the business of being incorporated into a distinet church for enjoying the special Ordinances of the Gospel more conveniently by themselves," was considered. In a most friendly spirit the church, by vote, assented to the dismissal of the petitioners, whose
names are all recorded ; and in the loving words of their pastor, Rev. Dr. Appletou, then nearly ninety years of age, recommended them to the work of church embodiment and invoked upon them the benediction of God.
In the same Christian spirit were other residents, worshippers of the congregation here, dismissed and recommended from the church at Newton, of which they were members, under Rev. Jonathan Homer, from the church at Menotomy (West Cam- bridge) under Rev. Samnel Cooke, and from the First Church in Brookline under Rev. Mr. Jack- son. Some thirty persons in all were thus united to join in church state. The covenant, breathing a liberal spirit, but which was superseded during the ministry of the second pastor, Rev. Daniel Austin, was read on the occasion, and the church was formally embodied by Rev. Mr. Jackson of Brookline, February 27, 1783.
The ordination of its first pastor, Rev. John Foster, who had previously preached as a candi- date, was on Monday, November 1, 1784. Rev. Joel Foster of New Salem, brother of the pastor elect, preached the sermon ; Rev. Ebenezer Spar- hawk of Templeton, a native of this place, offered the prayer of ordination ; Rev. Mr. Jackson of Brookline gave the charge; Rev. Mr. Hilliard of the First Church, Cambridge, gave the right hand of fellowship ; and Rev. Mr. Eliot of Watertown offered the concluding prayer.
Rev. Dr. Foster was born in Western, now War- ren, Massachusetts, April 19, 1763, and graduated at Dartmouth College in 1783. He was married in Boston, April, 1785, by Rev. Dr. Lathrop of the Second Church, to Hannah, daughter of Grant Webster. They had three sons and three daugh- ters. Allibone, in his Dictionary of Authors, mentions Mrs. Foster as having produced in The Coquette ; or, History of Eliza Wharton, one of the earliest American novels; and two of her daughters, Mrs. Cushing and Mrs. Cheney, are well-known authoresses.1
Dr. Foster was one of the board of overseers of Harvard University ; was a member of various literary, benevolent, and religious societies; and has left between twenty and thirty published discourses. He was a well-read scholar, of most kindly dispo- sition, fond of aneedote, a good talker, and dwelt more on the practical than on the theological side of religion. Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes has ad-
1 Mrs. Foster died at Montreal, April 17, 1840, at the age of eighty-one. The two daughters mentioned still survive.
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ILISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY.
mirably described him, in a recent sketch in the Atlantic Monthly, where he portrays a few of the early ministers of the association with which his father, Rev. Abiel Holmes, D. D., of Cambridge, was connected, and whom he met in his youth. " Following in the train, mild-eyed John Foster, D. D., of Brighton, with the lambent aurora of a smile about his pleasant mouth, which not even the Sabbath eould subdue to the true Levitical Aspect." He lived during his long residence here, at one time, in the old parsonage still standing at the foot of Rockland Street, though now much changed in appearance. At length he purchased on Foster Street and occupied till his death one of the pleasantest places in town, on the site of which now stands Mr. Horace W. Baxter's house, the Doctor's house having been moved to the oppo- site side of the street. He enjoyed a long and useful ministry, which was closed by his resignation, October 31, 1827, the last day of the forty-third year of his ministry. He died at Brighton, after an illness of a few days, September 16, 1829, aged sixty-six years. He was interred Thursday after- noon, the 17th, in the ancient burial-ground on Market Street, where a handsome monument with this inscription from the pen of the late Rev. Dr. Francis of Watertown marks his grave : -
" This Monument is erected to the memory of REV. JOHN FOSTER D. D., Who died September 16, 1829, aged 66 years.
" He was the first minister of the First Congregational Society in Brighton, and continued in that office 43 years. To his piety, fidelity, and usefulness as a Christian Pastor, and to the talents and virtues displayed in his ministry and his life, this inscription presents a feeble tribute dictated by affectionate respect for his character and services.
"The righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance."
It may be added that the street of which we here speak was by vote of the town, in 1848, named Foster Street, in honor of him who had really been minister to the whole town.
One of the chief events in this long ministry was the erection of the present church edifice of the First Parish, on the corner of Washing- ton and Market Streets. The old church of 1744, of which a cut is presented in these pages, stood in front of this, a little to the west, but nearly within the enclosure bounded by the pres- ent iron fence. The raising of the frame of the new edifice was begun under the direction of Mr. Jonas Gleason of Cambridgeport, September 21,
1808, and completed for dedication Thursday, June 22, 1809, without harın to life or limb of any employed in the enterprise. Tradition has it that in this raising, which occupied several days, the good pastor went each morning, early, to the spot and offered prayer among the workmen before axe or hammer was lifted upon the house.
While the new building was in progress, the parish worshipped in the old church. After the dedication, that was moved east to a spot opposite the site of the town-hall. The old church was converted into two school-rooms on its lower story, and into a town-hall in its upper story ; all town- meetings, as was customary in New England, having been held in it while it was " the meeting- house." The new town-hall, of which Mr. Gran- ville Fuller was the builder, at a cost of between seven and eight thousand dollars, was dedicated, with appropriate services, December 30, 1841. Its corner-stone had been laid with suitable ceremonies on the 2d of August previous. As it was for- nished with school-rooms and other apartments, there was now no further use for the old " meeting- house" hall. That was, accordingly, now sold to Mr. Charles White, set back a little from the street, and converted, by a third transformation, into his own dwelling-house, as it is this day. The tower, as seen in the eut, was found, in 1811, too much decayed to be removed. The porch was then sold to Mr. Oliver Cook, and by him attached as a rear appendage to a small white house on Rockland Street, on the right side as one enters from Washington Street, where it may be seen to- day, as when it was built on the church in 1794, fifty years after the building of the main body of the edifice.
By a curious coincidence the first church edi- fice in the Second Precinct of Cambridge experi- eneed the same fortune as this in the Third Precinct. That, too, was removed from its original site, on the erection of a second church edifice for the First Parish, West Cambridge, in the early part of this century, to Pleasant Street, and as late as 1868 was the residence of Mr. Charles Gage.
It will be in place here to add that, on annexa- tion with Boston, in 1874, when town-meetings and town-discussions were to give way forever to quiet ward-room elections of city officers, the town- hall was given up chiefly for police purposes. The main hall was handsomely finished by the city as a municipal court-room for this district, which court is now presided over by Henry Baldwin as
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judge and James Holton Rice as clerk, - both natives of this place.
We now return to a period embracing two im- portant subjects in the fortunes of this place, not yet constituted a town, but simply a precinct, or ecclesiastical parish, of the ancient town of Cam- bridge. These are the Revolution of 1775, and the gradual establishment of a great New England cattle-market here. South Cambridge, afterwards Brighton, in common with Cambridge, in all its borders experienced much of the sufferings and hazards of the war. She hore no mean part in rearing and sending forth Colonel Thomas Gardner, who met a hero's fate at the battle of Bunker Hill. With qualities particularly fitting him for civil and public services, he was a recognized leader and trusted servant through the earlier period of the Revolution. He held several of the most im- portant civil offices in the town, sustained a re- sponsible part in the battle of Lexington, and was in his fifty-second year commissioned colonel in a regiment of the Massachusetts army, June 2, 1775.
General Washington's arrival at Cambridge, at this period, is somewhat tragically connected with the history of Colonel Gardner. Washington reached Cambridge on the 2d of July, having hastened with all possible speed from Philadelphia, which he left on the 21st of June. Passing through New York on the 25th, he first heard of the battle of Bunker Hill, fought eight days before. He as- sumed command of the American army on the 3d of July, beneath that ancient elm, so justly cele- brated, in its season still green and vigorous, and some years since, with tender care, first encircled with an iron fence, the patriotic gift of the second minister of the First Church on this side of the river, the Rev. Daniel Austin.
Among the first war orders of Washington on his arrival at Cambridge was that for the military funeral of Colonel Gardner, who, while gallantly leading his regiment in the memorable battle of the 17th of June, fell, mortally wounded, and was borne back here, to the house of his sister, the wife of Samuel Sparhawk, on old River Street, now Western Avenue. This ancient house, rendered famous in these annals, still stands to testify to that day of blood. Here the expiring soldier re- ceived his brave son, whom, in the dreadful battle, the unselfish father had not allowed to forsake his post, as a private in the ranks, to help bear him from the field.
Washington's order deserves permanent record here : -
"July 4, 1775. Colonel Gardner is to be buried tomor- row, at 3 o'clock P. M. with the military honors due to so brave and gallant an officer who fought, bled and died in the cause of his Country and Mankind. His own regiment, except the company at Malden, to attend on this mournful occasion. The place of these companies, in the lines ou Prospect Hill, to be supplied by Colonel Glover's regiment till the funeral is over."
The character and services of Colonel Gardner might well claim a fuller tribute in these pages, in connection with his chosen home and the place of his death. They have, however, bcen well considered by many and able writers on the battle of Bunker Hill, especially by Frothingliam, who, in his Siege of Boston, details the affecting circumstances of the colonel's parting on the field from his son of nineteen, who survived to fill, with his family here, his father's place. Paige, in his recent His- tory of Cambridge, assigns to Colonel Gardner military rank second only to General Warren among all who fell on the American side at Bunker Hill.
Colonel Gardner's house is still standing in this place, though removed a short distance from its early site to Allston Street. Built of massive oak, it is one of the fine old mansions of the Revolu- tionary period, of which this and other sections of Cambridge presented many now cherished speci- mens. Lord Percy passed the door with his troops, his two field-pieces, and his baggage-train, on the early forenoon of the memorable 19th of April, on his way to succor the royal forces, then retreating from Lexington. " The Great Bridge," to which Lord Percy shortly arrived, to find the planks taken up, was but about a mile north of Colonel Gardner's house. The large and handsome house of Jesse Tirrell stands on the Gardner site, while a commodious street, running east out of Harvard Avenue, which was the old county road to Brook- line and Roxbury, was, some years since, laid out in the Gardner lands, and bears the patriot's name.
We preserve here a list of those from this place who, during the Revolutionary struggle, were cred- ited for service rendered in person, or, in some few instances, by substitutes : Colonel Thomas Gardner, Major John Gardner, Captain Thomas Hovey, Captain Josialı Warren, Captain Stephen Dana, Captain Eliphalet Robbins, Lieutenant Benjamin Dana, Lieutenant Ebenezer Sever, Lieu- tenant Benjamin Baker, Jesse Johnson, Abijah Brown, Edward Horton, Josiah Dana, Thomas
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