USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : containing carefully prepared histories of every city and town in the county, Vol. II > Part 20
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not desirable neighbor, also complained of them " for acts of Witchcraft by them Committed on his negro Woman." Captain John Floyd was also arrested and committed to prison. Fortunately the delusion spread no farther here, and the accused were set at liberty in the general jail-delivery which followed.
In 1695 a division of the town commons, con- sisting of about twenty-three hundred acres, was made among seventy-four freeholders. In this division a large part of the present town of Melrose became proprietary land, and many lines then laid down may still be recognized.
On Sunday morning, June 10, 1705, Rev. Michael Wigglesworth " Finnished His Work and Entred Apon an Eternal Sabbath of Rest." Of his characteristics as a poet I have before spoken. That he was offered the presidency of Harvard Col- lege evinces the esteem in which he was held by his contemporaries. His sermons were marked by a modest, though energetic, clearness of thought, which, joined to the natural polish of his manners, made him to be respected and beloved by lis peo- ple; and his memory long remained fragrant in the town and church, and outlived the generation of those who had known him. Within the memory of the living his name has been a sacred one in many families. As a physician he is mentioned as " attending the Sick, not only in his own Town, but also in all those of the Vicinity "; and, on his gravestone, he is styled " Mauldens Physician For Soul And Body Two."
After the death of Mr. Wigglesworth the spirit of strife again revived. At times the town refused to raise money for the ministry, and at others failed to concur with the church in the choice of a pastor. The civil power again interfered in the ecclesiastical affairs of the town ; and it was not until the fall of 1708, after nine ministers had been considered as candidates for the pulpit of Wigglesworth, that the town and church were able to come to a " loving Agreemt" in the choice of Mr. David Parsons. Even this was not a unanimous act ; for twelve free- men entered their dissent to the " procedens," for the reason that, by order of the court, negotiations had been entered upon with Mr. Thomas Tufts, and the town was not "abl to mantain two ministers at once." Mr. Parsons, however, was settled, and remained here nearly twelve years. He was an ec- centric man, of strong passions and a quarrelsome temper ; and his labors in Malden do not appear to have been altogether peaceful. His departure,
in 1721, was preceded by a dismissal. He became the first minister of Leicester, whose people expressed their utter unworthiness of " so great a Blessing "; but the fourteen years of his settlement with them was a period of bitter strife. He died in Leicester in 1743. The curse which went with him through life might almost seem to have followed him to a ' not honored grave. The mound beneath which he was laid to rest was long since broken by the plough ; and the stone which alone remains as his memorial is utilized as the cover of a chimney aslı- hole. The removal of Mr. Parsons was attended by that of many of his younger parishioners ; and the names of Green, Lynde, Waite, Newhall, Sar- geant, Whittemore, and others of Malden origin still remain in Leicester.
The church and town were not long in filling the place left vacant by Mr. Parsons. They very soon concurred, on the same day, in the choice of one who, like Mr. Wigglesworth, was to pass with them a long and useful life. Joseph Emerson was born at Chelmsford, April 20, 1700, and entered Har- vard College at the early age of thirteen years. He was graduated in 1717, and at that time "began to preach to general acceptance." Having spent four years in teaching and preaching at various places, he was ordained at Malden, October 31, 1721. Here he labored nearly forty-six years; and such was his rare good health and strength that, during this long period, he was absent from his pulpit but two Sabbaths. During his pastorate a long and bitter dissension, resulting in a division, occurred in his parish ; but he so lived that "he was not reproached by any as being the cause." He died suddenly in 1767. The town record thus quaintly pays a tribute to his memory : " The Rev. Joseph Emerson consort to Mrs. Mary Emerson who had been in the judgment of charity a faithful minister here, and that for the space of forty and five years
Deceased in the evening of the 13 day of July 1767, very soon after lying down to sleep who was chcirly and in health before." On his gravestone he is called " learned, pious, and faithful"; and one who writes of him says, " He was just, amiable, kind, and benevolent." The record of his life pre- sents no points of interest to the careless observer ; but those who love the simple, earnest, and faithful lives of the clergy of the colonial period will find much that will refresh them therein. Like the most of his contemporaries, he was strongly attached to the doctrines of Calvin, which he made to hold no secondary place in his sermons. He looked upon
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piety in practice as the only sure foundation of a happy life ; and he made the Bible his daily com- panion, that he might gain wisdom at the fountain- head of truth. He never entered upon affairs of importance without seeking the blessing and im- ploring the guidance of God. We are told that at · the tender age of eight years he conducted family worship in the absence of his father, " to the aston- ishment of those who attended on the exercises of the family "; and that through his life " at stated times he every day addressed himself to Heaven." " Such was his humility," writes his biographer, " that when unguarded words fell from his lips, he would ask forgiveness of his children and ser- vants." His son, the Rev. Joseph Emerson of Pepperell, thus emphatically describes his charac- ter : " He was a Boanerges, a son of thunder, to the workers of iniquity ; a Barnabas, a son of con- solation, to the mourners in Zion."
As has been intimated, the course of church affairs during the settlement of Mr. Emerson was not such as would induce great spiritual peace. From the incorporation of the town " our Charles- town neighbors," or those who dwelt at Mystic- Side within the limits of Charlestown, had enjoyed church privileges with the inhabitants of Malden. As members of the church they were entitled to vote in its affairs ; but as inhabitants of Charles- town they had no voice in the complementary trans- actions of the town. It may be readily seen how, under these conditions, a town-meeting, although nearly, if not entirely, composed of church-mem- bers, might refuse, as often happened, to concur with the church of which they were a part. Be- fore the ordination of Mr. Emerson steps had been taken for the annexation of Mystic-Side; but, in consequence of the opposition of Charlestown, and perhaps for other reasons, it was not consummated until the spring of 1726, when the General Court passed the necessary act in answer to the petition of Joses Bucknam, Jacob Wilson, and Jonathan Barret. This act ceded to Malden all the territory of Charlestown on thic northerly side of Mystic River and the easterly side of North River, except a small strip of land at Penny Ferry which still forms a part of Charlestown. This tract com- prised about one half of the present town of Everett, and thirty-four years later it was in- habited by thirty families.
It was not long before the sections came into conflict. The meeting-house near Bell Rock had become too small for the town, and it was pro-
posed in 1727 to build a new one. Two locations were considered, one upon the town land near the old house, and the other upon a knoll in the par- sonage orchard. These were soon abandoned, and the town voted to build " between Lewis's Bridge and the Pound on the west side of the Country Road." It was afterwards found that " the South- erly Inhabitants were Something uneasy " about the matter ; and " they Said if they Could have a Committee of wise, indifferent men to determine the matter they Should be intirely easy." The other inhabitants, in a conciliatory spirit, "not- withstanding the former vote, readily consented "; and, at a town-meeting held November 17, 1727, a committee was chosen, which was composed of five eminent men of the colony, to whom the three localities mentioned were submitted for their de- cision. The committec reported in favor of the location near Lewis's Bridge; bnt their report fell into the hands of those of the selectmen who were of the south side, who refused to put it upon the record. At this point the General Court inter- posed, and ordered the record to be made and to become obligatory upon the town, in accordance with the vote by which it had constituted the com- mittee. This was not a settlement favored by the southern selectmen, who at once called a town- meeting, which the other side "thought to be a manifest Contempt of Authority"; and to the num- ber of nearly seventy they "entered their Dissents." The meeting was held, however, and the men of the south decided against the recording of the re- port. The factious party appear to have had their own way for a while; and nothing more was done about the new house for more than a year and a half, when the General Court passed an order that the house should be placed on the location most favored by the people of the northern section, be- tween Lewis's Bridge and the pound, on the site now occupied by the church of the First Parish. The land for this purpose was given by William Sprague, and was a portion of that which had been known as the " clay-pits," in reference to which a fine was laid in 1699 to "punish transgressors yt shall intrench on ye highways jn diging of clay." Bricks were made near by many years after; and the Frog Pond, well remembered by Malden boys who are on the writer's side of forty, was a relic of the clay-digging days. The frame of the new meeting-house was raised, no doubt with liberal compotations, August 28, 1729. A rude ground- plan of the house was made some years ago by one
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who had known it in its latter years. It was un- painted, both inside and outside. The pulpit stood on the north side, opposite the great south door, which was the principal entrance. Another door- way, on the easterly side, gave additional facilities for ingress and egress. In two corners stairways gave access to the gallery; and the description quaintly adds, " The east stair was for women and the west stair for men, and they could not get together in the gallery without getting over the railing."
While the newly admitted inhabitants of the southern portion of the town were striving with their neighbors of the elder section, several fami- lies of the north end presented their complaints. The great distance at which they lay prevented attendance upon the ministry, except in the finest weather ; and many of them preferred the nearer way to Reading. Seven of them were members of the Reading church as early as 1720. They peti- tioned to be set off in 1726, but for some reason their application was not successful. A proposi- tion to erect two churches in Malden appears to have been made about this time; but a negative vote of the town caused the petition to be renewed in 1729; and ten families, and "some of the wealthiest," with their farms, were annexed to Reading with the free consent of the town. The section thus lost shortened the town about a mile, and is now known as Greenwood. The peculiar configuration of the southern portion of Wakefield clearly shows the extent of territory which the old town of Reading then gained.
The new meeting-house was nearly a year in building. On its completion, a town-meeting was held, and " there was a unanimous Vote to meet therein to carry on the Worship of God for the fu- ture." To this the inhabitants of both sections, joining freely in the vote, assented. It was claimed that the house was near the centre of the town and much more convenient for the southern than for the northern people, " both by Reason of the near- ness of the House and Goodness of the Roads." Although the people of the southern district had taken a part in the passage of the vote just men- tioned, their pacification was far from being real. The first sermon in the new house was preached by Mr. Emerson, August 16, 1730; and, fonr Sabbaths later, the malecontents held a service by themselves. After this their meetings were frequent ; and some attempts to maintain stated preaching appear to have been made, although 110
regular place of worship may have been provided, and an organization was not effected for several years.
While the people of the sonth district absented themselves from the town's meeting-house, they continued, as they were legally bound, to contribute to the support of Mr. Emerson, and to this matter of fancied injustice they often allnded, with em- phasis, in their frequent petitions for a separation. At length, in 1733, they petitioned to be made " a distinct Township or Precinct," with Pember- ton's Brook as its northern bound. This was ask- ing a liberal division, as the new meeting-house, to which thirty families, living within the bonnds of the proposed new town, still resorted, was within thirty rods, and was the first building north of Lewis's Bridge. The town opposed a division, as being a measure which would " necessarily tend to the impoverishing the Town and bring them into the utmost Difficulty, Confusion, and laying Such Burdens as will be grievous to us and our Pos- terity." The petition was unsuccessful; but, the next year, the seceders took another step for- ward, and a council of neighboring churches em- bodied what was for fifty-eight years known as the Malden South Church ; and a meeting-house was soon after raised upon land given by Jonathan Sar- geant for that purpose. This location was upon the height since known as Nelson's Hill, near the centre of the farm which had descended from Wil- liam Sargeant, who first " broke the seals " to the infant church of Malden ; and it was reached by a way twenty-six feet wide which led from the high- way. The meeting-house was never fully com- pleted, and it is said to have been in a very dilapidated condition in 1787. The members of the new church afterwards complained that, having . borne their part "at great Cost in Erecting a fine substantial meeting-honse" for the other part of the town, and having "waded thro' so great a Charge," they were " oblidged to Erect a nother." A second petition for separation representing that they had " been at the charge of building a meet- ing-House for the publick worship of God and for Several Years past maintained a Gospel Minister amongst them for the Comfort and Conveniency of them and their Families," was made in April, 1735 ; but it met the fate of the former.
Rev. Joseph Stimpson of Charlestown was or- dained as the first pastor of the South Church, Sep- tember 24, 1735; and an unsuccessful attempt was made to have the town assume the payment of
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the salaries of both ministers. A season of quiet ensued for a few months until December, 1737, when the petition for separation was renewed by fifty-three individuals ; and their persistence was rewarded by the division of the town into two pre- cincts " for the Promotion of Religion and the Peace of the Town." By the act of separation eight persons with their estates, some of which were near the centre of the new parisli, were allowed to continue with the North Precinct. The ministry-lands were to be equally divided, except that Mr. Emerson was to have the use of the par- sonage-house and ground during his continuance in the ministry in Malden.
The history of the South Church, so far as known, shows no prolonged season of prosperity. Frequent quarrels with the North Parish in relation to the ministry-lands, and repeated efforts to pre- vent the secession of its members to the sister church, make up the staple of its substance. Mr. Stimpson continued its minister a few years, and was dismissed in 1744; but he remained an in- habitant of the precinct, and resided there in 1752. The church had no settled pastor until 1747, when Rev. Aaron Cleaveland, who had been settled at Had- dam, Conn., was called to the vacant pulpit, which had been offered to others. As an encouragement to Mr. Cleaveland to remove, the precinct voted to purchase a parsonage for his use, the cost of which was advanced by Benjamin Hills, a leading member of the parish, who became dissatisfied a few years later, and was set off, with others, to the North Precinct. Mr. Cleaveland was installed in June, 1747. He was a native of Cambridge, and a grad- uate of Harvard College, and is said to have been " a prodigy of physical strength and agility." He remained in Malden but three years, and removed to Halifax, N. S., where he became an Episcopa- lian. He died in 1754, in Philadelphia, in the house of his friend, Benjamin Franklin, who " hon- ored and praised him."
Soon after the departure of Mr. Cleaveland the church and precinct called Rev. Eliakim Willis, who was a native of Dartmouth, and had been graduated at Harvard College in 1735, in the same class as his predecessor. There was much opposi- tion to his settlement, " on account of their jna- bility to support him and the Prospect of the two Parishes being united again if his Settlement [be] deferred." About the same time the North Parislı unanimously voted that " the north meeting house mite be pulled down and Set up at the old spot
which was the caus of the south drawing of pro- vided the South would Joyn with them to Carring on the worship of god with them there "; but " the South did Refuse Complying with So good a pro- posal"; and Mr. Willis was ordained, probably in the summer of 1752. Fifteen persons, " many of whose estates were as large as any in the Parish," addressed the ordaining council, " signifying their Disapprobation." Mr. Willis, though an able man, beloved by his parishioners and respected by the whole town, was unable to stay the downward course of the affairs of his precinct. In 1757 it was rep- resented that they " find by long Experience that . they are not able to support the Gospel among them and are greatly in arrears to their minister," and that they were " greatly impoverished by sup- porting a minister among them, and by contending with the north Parish"; and twelve persons of considerable estates petitioned to be restored to the old church. Some light is thrown upon the inter- nal condition of the precinct by the report made by a committee to the General Court, which de- clared that this petition was "a Design to break up ye South Parish." Though the petition was refused and the malecontents forced to remain, for a time at least, with the South Church, matters grew no better, but steadily tended downward ; and the course of a few years witnessed an almost total loss of interest and an inability to raise the means wherewith to meet the expenses of public worship. The salary of Mr. Willis was unpaid, and the par- sonage estate was relinquished to him in settlement. Mr. Willis thereafter, during the existence of the South Precinct, depended upon his labor as a farm- er for a livelihood, preaching upon the Sabbath for the scanty contributions which his people and strangers might make.
A generation was now coming into the world which was destined to achieve the independence of the colonies and to found a great empire ; and in the military movements which now began to enlist the patriotism of the men of that day the inliabi- tants of Malden prepared to take a part. Since the days of King Philip they had always borne their share in the various expeditions which were sent forth. Malden troopers, under Captain William Green, whilom of the Three County Troop, marched on an expedition against the Indians in 1695; and Edmund Chamberlain, a son of that Edmund Chamberlain who fell at the Narragansett Fight, who was born after his father was slain, died from disease contracted in the expedition to Port Royal
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in 1710. About the same time James Hovey was a prisoner in the hands of the French and Indians in Canada. Later nine young men from Malden laid down their lives in the performance of their duty in the celebrated siege of Louisburg, in 1745.
In the successive campaigns of the French war, which began in 1755 and extended over a period of nearly eight years, the men of Malden took an active part, although no full company was recruited here. Lieutenant Simon Wade was wounded in the futile expedition against Crown Point, and was killed at the capitulation of Fort William Henry, in 1757, when the savages of Montcalm's army, in the presence of their French allies, inhumanly massacred the greater part of the unfortunate gar- rison. In a company commanded by Dr. Ebenezer Marrow of Medford, in 1758, were Lieutenants Samuel Burditt and Darius Green, with thirty-one non-commissioned officers and privates of Malden. This company was sent to the westward with the forces under General Abercrombie, and participated in the unsuccessful and bloody attempt upon Ticon- deroga, in which the colonial troops experienced a heavy loss and were afterwards much reduced by sickness. The Malden men who died in this cam- paign were James Whittemore, John Burditt, Jr., Ezekiel Floyd, Joseph Jenkins, and Nathaniel Wayte. In a company in service in 1762, com- manded by Captain Moses Hart of Lynn, were eleven men of Malden ; and individuals were scattered in various regiments during the war. This war was the nursery of the army of the Rev- olution ; and there seems to have been a growing fondness for military life, at this time, among all classes. The enrolled militia of Malden in 1758 was one hundred and thirty-four men, under the command of Captain John Dexter. In 1763 its officers were Captain Ezra Green, Lieutenant Jabez Lynde, and Ensign Thomas Hills.
As we tread the threshold of the Revolution it may not be unprofitable to inquire into the state of the town as it approached the close of the colonial period. Materials to satisfy such an in- quiry, though scattered, are happily not insuffi- cient for our purpose. In common with the great body of the people of Massachusetts Bay, the in- habitants of Malden were alive to the great dan- gers of the time. They were heartily in sympathy with the cause of liberty, and evinced their readi- ness to act in its defence. Their action at a later period we shall consider in its place. The inhabi-
tants of the town, in 1765, were divided into one hundred and seventy-four families, inhabiting one hundred and forty-four houses. Of the aggregate number of nine hundred and eighty-three, forty- eight were negroes and four hundred and sixteen were under sixteen years of age. During the next eleven years the population increased to one thiou- sand and thirty. In 1767 seven work-houses or shops are mentioned ; and £ 244 was the value of the " Trading Stock " of the community. Of mon- ey at interest £1,169 6s. 8d. appears; and the live stock of the farmers consisted of eighty-four horses, one hundred oxen, and four hundred and eighty-six cows, besides sheep and a few swine. The taxable products of the land were fifty-eight hundred and thirty-nine bushels of grain and six hundred and fifty-two barrels of "Cyder," with one thousand and fifty-two tons of hay, of which but two hundred and thirty-four tons were of Eng- . lish grass, the salt marshes then, and in earlier years, furnishing a large proportion of the hay ob- tained. By these figures the sparseness of the population of the territory now covered by the towns of Malden, Melrose, and Everett may be understood. The simplicity of their condition may appear in the fact that, eight years before, one chaise and fourteen chairs were the wheel carriages sufficient for the wants of this community. Trav- elling was performed upon foot and on horseback ; and a few years earlier the purchase of a " shay" was the plentiful source of spiritual disquiet in the soul of Mr. Emerson.
Slavery existed in a mild and patriarchal form; but it was still a real slavery wherein human beings had a money value and were sold like cattle or the ground on which they trod. The names of a few of these servitors have come down to us ; but the names of Brahma Bucknam and Cato Lynde, of Phyllis Willis and Violet Hills, belong to a day and a condition which have passed away. The compar- ative value of human flesh in Malden may be known by the inventory of Deacon John Pratt, which was made in 1742, when an " oald negroman " and a cow were valued alike at £ 10 each. The inven- tory of the estate of Ezra Green, made in 1768, valued "a Negro man named Jeferre " at £ 20, while the more youthful " Negro Boy Named Simon " was invoiced at £ 33. A "Negro Garl Named Vilot," increased the inventory only by the amount of £ 10 13s. 4d. Several individuals who had been slaves remained in Malden within the last fifty years, the last of whom was Simon
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