USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : containing carefully prepared histories of every city and town in the county, Vol. II > Part 37
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in the Nonantum dialect, the same with the name of the Indian chief ; and Waban was the first con- vert under Eliot's ministry among this people. The service on the occasion extended to three hours, yet the Indians affirmed that they were not weary. After the sermon one of the Indians asked whether
Eliot Monument.
God could understand prayers in the Indian lan- guage as well as in English. Another asked how the Indians could be so different from the English, if they all had one father. A third asked how the world could be so full of people, if they were once all drowned by the flood ; and a fourth, a very aged man, inquired whether it was too late for so old a man as he to repent and be saved. Some of the sachems and conjurers were enemies to Mr. Eliot's work, and threatened him with violence if he did not desist. But he bravely replied : " I am about the work of the great God, and he is with me, so that I neither fear you, nor all the sachems in the country. I will go on, and do you touch me if you dare."
At the second and third meetings, Eliot was accompanied by some of the magistrates and min- isters of the colony, adding dignity to the work and the occasion. He began by questioning the Indians on the truths already learned, and answer- ing the questions which their curiosity dictated.
Mr. Eliot travelled extensively in this work, making his missionary tours every fortnight, visited
all the Indians in the colonies of Plymouth and Massachusetts, and once preached the gospel to the celebrated King Philip, who, it is said, rejected it with disdain. He induced many of the Indians to relinquish their wandering habits of life, and lived to see no fewer than twenty-four of them become preachers to their own people. In his labors for the Indians he endured great hardships and exposures. In one of his letters he says : " I have not been dry, night or day, from the third day of the week to the sixth, but so travelled ; and at night, pull off my boots and wring my stockings and on with them again, and so continue ; but God steps in and helps."
The report of the success of these early efforts in behalf of the aborigines of Massachusetts ex- cited a strong sensation in England. The British Parliament, then under the Protectorate, passed an act, July 27, 1649, for the advancement of the work. The preamble of the act runs as follows : " Whereas the Commons of England, assembled in Parliament, have received certain intelligence from divers godly ministers and others in New England, that divers of the Heathen natives, through the pious care of some godly English, who preach the gospel to them in their own Indian language, not only of barbarous have become civil, but many of them, forsaking their accustomed charms and sor- ceries and other Satanical delusions, do now call upon the name of the Lord and give great testi- mony to the power of God, drawing them from death and darkness to the life and light of the glo- rious gospel of Jesus Christ, which appeareth by their lamenting with tears thicir misspent lives, teaching their children what they are instructed themselves, being careful to place them in godly families and English schools, betaking themselves to one wife, putting away the rest, and by their constant prayers to Almighty God morning and evening in their families, - prayers expressed, in all appearance, with much devotion and zeal of heart, - All which considered, we cannot but, in behalf of the nation we represent, rejoice and give glory to God for the beginning of so glorious a propagation of the gospel among those poor hea- then, which cannot be prosecuted with that ex- pedition as is desired, unless fit instruments be encouraged and maintained to pursue it, schools and clothing be provided, and many other necessa- ries, &c." The act of which this preamble sets forth the reasons, then proceeds to establish a cor- poration of sixteen persons, to superintend the dis-
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HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY.
bursement of moneys which should be given to aid in instructing, clothing, civilizing, and Christian- izing the Indians. A general collection was or- dered to be made for these purposes through all the churches of England and Wales. The minis- ters were required to read this act in the churches, and to exhort the people to a cheerful contribution to so pious a work. Circular letters were pub- lished at the same time by the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, recommending the same object. A fund which in the time of Charles the Second produced six hundred pounds sterling per annum was thus provided, the benefits of which lasted till the period of the separation of the colo- nies from the mother country. Oliver Cromwell interested himself in missions to the heathen, and formed a gigantic scheme of uniting all the Protes- tant churches in the world into one great mission- ary society. The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, founded in 1698, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, founded in 1701, and the Scottish Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge, founded in 1709, with all their benign fruits, had their roots in the work of John Eliot among the Indians in Newton.
An Indian church was never organized at New- ton ; but very soon after Eliot's work began at Nonantum, a settlement of "praying Indians " was formed, which was removed in 1651 to Na- tick, by the advice of Eliot and the magistrates and ministers. Here the Indians built a bridge across the river, and erected for themselves a meeting-house which would have done honor to an English housewright. A civil government was es- tablished among them on the model of the Hebrew theocracy, and a church organized with fasting and prayer. Mr. Eliot translated the whole Bible into the Indian tongue, besides The Poor Man's Prac- tice of Piety and other works, and had the satis- faction to see the Indians well advanced in their civil and ecclesiastical estate.
At the age of eighty Mr. Eliot offered to relin- quish his salary from the church in Roxbury, and desired to be released from his labors as their teacher. And when, from increasing infirmities, he could no longer visit the Indians, he persuaded several families to send their colored servants to him every week, that he might instruct them in the Word of God. So thorough-going was his mis- sionary spirit and his self-denial, that, it is said, he gave most of his salary to the Indians, liv-
ing simply, and allowing himself little sleep, that he might have the more time and strength for his missionary work. Besides his Indian Bible, printed in Cambridge in 1661 - 63, which was the only Bible printed in America till a much later period, he made a version of the Psalms in metre in the same dialect, and prepared a Harmony of the Gospels in English, a work on the Christian Commonwealth, which the magistrates pronounced seditious, and compelled him openly to retract its sentiments ; and various letters describing his work among the Indians. When he departed, all New England bewailed his death as a general calamity. Cotton Mather says, " We had a tradition that the country could never perish as long as Eliot was alive."
At the period of the War of King Philip in 1675, a wide-spread prejudice sprang up against the In -. dian race, as was very natural, and from this preju- dice the Nonantums, who had been the peculiar charge of the apostle Eliot, were not exempt. He remained faithful to them to the last; but they became the object of the suspicions of the whites ; and partly to satisfy those who were hostile to them, and partly as a measure of safety, to pre- serve their lives, they were unwillingly removed from their homes, and transferred, amid much suf- fering, to Deer Island in Boston Harbor, and de- tained there till after the death of King Philip. They never regained their manhood. But although they had their civil and church state at Natick, and acquired a certain degree of civilization, never- theless through emigration, death, or intermarriage, they gradually disappeared before the advancing tide of the white population. In about two hun- dred years from the commencement of Eliot's labors, it is believed the last drop of the Nonantum blood ceased to flow in human veins ; and now, except for the histories of Eliot's missionary work, the monuments commemorating his name and la- bors in South Natick and Newton, the few copies of the Indian Bible known to exist, the gravestone of Daniel Takawambait, the native Indian preacher, at Natick, and the cellar-holes of the houses of some of the Indians on the slope of Pegan Hill in Dover, the name and record of these people have utterly vanished. The Indian Bible and the Poor Man's Practice of Piety, with a few historical re- ports and letters, are the only existing records of the work of faith of the Indian apostle. It is said that with the materials thus supplied, the wife of Rev. Dr. Robinson, the author of the Biblical Re-
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searches, herself an ornament to German culture and learning, studied successfully the dialect of the people and prepared a grammar of it.
The first pastor of Newton was John Eliot, Jr., the son of the Indian apostle. He graduated at Harvard University in 1656, and was ordained at Newton July 20, 1664. So far as can be ascertained there were at that date only about twenty families within the limits of Newton. The church was or- ganized the same day, and Thomas Wiswall, for- merly of the church in Dorchester, was ordained ruling elder. Mr. Eliot was an earnest and faith- ful minister until his death, which occurred Octo- ber 11, 1668, after a brief pastorate of a little more than four years. Besides his proper minis- terial duties in his own parish, he aided his father in his missionary work among the Indians, taking part in the preaching of the gospel to them in Stoughton, Natick, and elsewhere, and thus, like his father, performing the double duties of pastor and missionary. His residence was on the west side of Centre Street, not far from the corner of Cabot Street, and the well from which he drank still yields refreshing water on the premises lately owned by Hon. Thomas Edmands.
From the beginning, Newton manifested an honorable patriotic and military spirit, and some of the citizens distinguished themselves by acts of marked bravery. A large number of the earlier inhabitants bore military titles. In a genealogical register of the town reaching down to the begiu- ning of the present century, - the period of a meagre population and a very slow growth, - we find two generals, nine colonels, three majors, forty-one captains, twenty-one lieutenants, and eight ensigns. From 1799 till within a few years, a powder-house, erected by the town, stood near the site of one of the ancient "noon-houses," at the junction of Lyman and Centre streets, Newton Centre. Newton men showed much bravery in the early conflicts with the Indians, and some of them were among the martyrs who fell in those fearful struggles. John Druce, son of Vincent Druce, belonged to Captain Prentice's troop of cavalry, which rendered important service in Philip's War in 1675. Captain Prentice did much to check the progress of King Philip's troops, and by his bold and rapid marches drove the enemy before him wherever he went. He was a man of great courage. His keen eye detected every movement of the savage foe, and his fearless band of troopers were ever ready to accompany him into the thickest
of the fight. He died at the age of eighty-nine years, and was buried under arms by his old com- rades. He had been an officer in the company of troopers about twenty years at the commencement of King Philip's War, and in 1691 the Indians sent a petition to the General Court that he might be appointed their ruler. His house, at the junction of Waverly Avenue and Ward Street, is said to have been built by Captain John Clark. Edward Jackson, son of Deacon John Jackson, was killed in an attack by Indians on the town of Medfield, February 21, 1676.
Through the influences of the gospel as preached by Mr. Eliot, the inhabitants of Newton lived in peace with the Nonantum Indians and were never molested by them. But they dreaded the attacks of other and hostile tribes which roamed around them. Hence they erected two garrison-houses, which might serve as a place of defence in case of an attack. In these houses the chamber projected over the lower room, and was supplied with bullets and stones in abundance, that with these and with scalding water, to be poured upon the heads of the savages, the inmates shut up in these places of de- fence might protect themselves against their bar- barous foes. One of these garrison-houses was on land of E. C. Converse, Esq., late Israel Lombard's, opposite the estate long known as Hyde's Nursery on Centre Street; and another on Ward Street, near the Newton reservoir, nearly on the site of the residence of heirs of Ephraim Ward.
Newton men aided their brethren, the early set- tlers of New England, in various quarters against the Indians, now at Casco (Portland), afterwards at Bethel, Me., to which some of the people of Newton had removed; now in New Hampshire, where the oldest Captain Noah Wiswall was killed in 1690, and now in Massachusetts, where two of the colonists were massacred at Groton, July 21, 1706, and now in Rhode Island in the woods around Mount Hope.
In the war with the French and Indians called the Old French War, some of the citizens of New- ton were engaged, and sacrificed their lives. One of the most distinguished of these was Samuel Jenks of West Newton, who served as an officer in the campaigns of 1758 and 1760, the father of the late Rev. Dr. William Jenks, who was born in West Newton. Another of these brave men in the Indian conflicts was Lieutenant Timothy Jack- son, whose wife carried on the farm and worked on the land with her own hands while her husband
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HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY.
was absent in the war. Colonel Ephraim Jackson also served as a lieutenant.
Colonel Ephrain Williams, born in Newton, February 24, 1715, was captain of a military com- pany in the war. In a memorable battle fought with the French and Indians near Lake George, he was shot through the head. The name of this Colonel Williams is honorably connected with the cause of education in Massachusetts. In early life he removed to the town of Stockbridge, and was killed September 8, 1755, aged forty years. He was never married. About seven weeks previous to his death he made a will, providing for some small bequests to his friends and kindred, and then appropriating the residue of his property to the support of a free school in a township west of Fort Massachusetts, " provided that the said town- ship, when incorporated, shall be called Williams- town." The fund gradually increased, and a free school was erected in 1788, which in 1793 became Williams College, - a living fountain of good to the cause of religion and sound learning, and whose influence has reached to every quarter of the globe. As the city of Hartford traces its birth to the original town of Newton, from which Hooker and his company proceeded in 1636 to found the new colony in Connecticut, so Williams College, where the great work of missions to the heathen from the American churches was nursed into life, points to the same hills and vales in acknowl- edgment of its origin. Newton has thus been a greater benediction to the world than many even of her most intelligent children know. Cotton Mather received a letter from Dr. Leusden, affirm- ing that the example of New England in Chris- tianizing the Nonantum Indians of Newton, awak- ened the Dutch to attempt the conversion of the heathen in Ceylon and their other East-Indian possessions, and that multitudes had in conse- quence been converted to Christianity.
The first cemetery in Newton was around the First Church, on the east side of Centre Street. An acre of land was given to the town for the meeting- house and burial-place by Deacon John Jackson, and afterwards enlarged by a gift from his son, Abraham Jackson. The requisite legal convey- ance of this latter gift was never recorded, and the right of the town to its ownership was eontested by Mr. Jackson's heirs. The land being in a low situation, and the town having never used any part of it as a place of burial, it was subsequently relin- quished to the heirs of the original owner. This
is the rectangle of land bounded on the north and east by the cemetery, south by Cotton Street, and west by Centre Street. The first tenants of the cemetery, so far as is known, were the Rev. John Eliot, Jr., the first pastor, and his first wife, -the latter buried in June, 1665, the former in October, 1668. The marble tablet erected on the spot where Mr. Eliot was buried took the place of the original memorial. The cemetery was enlarged by subse- quent purchases in 1802 and 1804. Near the spot where the meeting-house of the First Church originally stood, a marble pillar was erected Sep- tember 1, 1852, at the expense of forty-two per- sons, descendants of the first settlers, with appro- priate inscriptions on the four faces, commemorating the first inhabitants of the town, and recording their names. On the four sides of this monument are the following inscriptions : ---
On the north side :
" Dea. Jolin Jackson gave one acre of land for this Burial Place and First church which was erected upon this spot in 1660. - Abraham Jackson, son of Dea. Jolm, gave one acre, which two acres form the old part of this Cemetery. Died June 29, 1740. Æ. 75. - Edward Jackson gave twenty acres for the Parsonage in 1660, and 31 acres for the Ministerial Wood Lot in 1681. His widow Elizabeth died, 'September, 1709, Æ. 92."
On the east side :
" Rev. John Eliot, jr., First Pastor of the First church, ordained July 20, 1664. - His widow married Edmond Quincy, of Braintree. Died, 1700. - His only daughter married John Bowles, Esq., of Roxbury, and died May 23, 1687. - His only son John settled in Windsor, Connecti- cut, where he died in 1733, leaving a son John, a student in Yale College. . . . Erected September 1, 1852. By descendants of the First Settlers."
On the west side :
"John Jackson, 1639-1674. Samuel Hyde, 1640- 1689; 79. Edward Jackson, 1643-1681; 79. John Fuller, 1644-1698; 87. Jolin Parker, 1650-1686; 71. Richard Park, 1647-1665. Jonathan Hyde, 1647-1711; 85. Thomas Prentice, 1649-1710; 89. Vincent Druce, 1650-1678. Thomas Hammond, 1650-1675. John Ward, 1650-1708; 82. Thomas Wiswall, 1654-1683. Thomas Prentice, 2nd, 1656. James Prentice, 1656-1710; 81. John Keurick, 1658-1686; 82. Isaac Williams, 1661- 1708; 69. Abraham Williams, 1662-1712; 84. James Trowbridge, 1664-1717 ; 81. John Spring, 1664-1717; 87. Jolmn Eliot, 1664-1668 ; 33. . . . . First Settlers of Newton, Times of their Settlement and Deaths, with their Ages."
On the south side :
" Thomas Wiswall, ordained Ruling Elder, July 20, 1664. His sons, -Euoch, of Dorchester, died Nov. 28, 1706, Æ. 73. - Rev. Ichabod, Minister of Duxbury 30 ycars. Agent of Plymouth Colony in England, 1690; died
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July 23, 1700, Æ. 63. Capt. Noah, of Newton, an Officer in the Expedition against Canada. Killed in battle with the French and Indians July 6, 1690. A. 50, leaving a son Thomas. Ebenezer, of Newton, died June 21, 1691. Æ. 45. .... J. B. Jepson, Newton Corner, Maker."
The amount subscribed for the erection of this monument was $325, in sums varying from $2 to $25.
In this cemetery are found the memorials of a multitude of the early settlers. A walk among the graves where
" The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep,"
reveals many gravestones whose inscriptions are no longer legible, and others, recalling the names which filled a large place in the early history of the town, and belonged to the founders of its institu- tions and the authors of its prosperity. Neglected though it be, the historical associations by which it is hallowed can never be transferred to the beautiful cemetery reared by modern art and refinement in the centre of the town. It stands, unique in in- terest, in the midst of the tide of life and business that bustles beside it.
The West Parish Cemetery is situated on land conveyed to the parish by Nathan Fuller, by deed dated September 21, 1781. The South Burying- Ground, at the junction of Centre Street and Need- ham Avenue, was laid out in 1802, and belonged to twenty-eight proprietors, who sold it to the town in 1833. Amasa Winchester, Esq., con- veyed to the town three quarters of an acre of land to increase its proportions. In 1813 Samuel Brown, Esq., a merchant of Boston, gave two acres of land at the Lower Falls for the use of the Epis- copal Church and for a cemetery. The extensive rural cemetery, near the geographical centre of the town, was dedicated to its present use June 10, 1857. The prominent feature of the occasion was an interesting and appropriate address by Rev. Mr. (since Bishop) F. D. Huntington. The soldiers' monument, near the entrance to the cemetery, was dedicated with fitting ceremonies July 23, 1864, nearly a year before the War of the Rebellion was ended. An address was delivered by the Rev. Pro- fessor H. B. Hackett, and a poem by S. F. Smith, D. D., which were printed. The original purchase was about thirty acres, but by subsequent additions the whole area now extends to about eighty-two acres, the average price of the whole being $145 per acre. The number of interments to the close
of 1878 was about 1,800, average number per year, 130.
During a period of fifty years thirty-six slaves are mentioned in wills and inventories, owned by about twenty-four persons in Newton. The slaves were probably brought from the West Indies. One of these slaves was a woman, the property of Mrs. Meriam, wife of the fourth pastor of the church in Newton. One day, seeing her unkindly treated by her mistress, Mr. Meriam paid his wife the price at which she valued the woman, and set her free. The last slave in Newton was an aged man, a life- long encumbrance of the estate of Judge Fuller, afterwards of General Hull, -the estate now owned and occupied by ex-Governor Claflin.
At the town-meetings in the early periods of the existence of Newton, much time and attention were necessarily devoted to the preliminary wants of the town, especially the laying out of roads, and the security of all the rights and privileges of the inhabitants. The first road laid out was from Newton Corner, through what is now Brighton, to Roxbury. By this road John Eliot came to visit his Indian charge at Nonantum. Then followed Dedham Road, now Centre Street, reaching from Watertown to Dedham ; then the Sherburne Road, so called, extending from Brookline, through the southerly and southwesterly parts of Newton, and opening up the estates as far as Charles River. Ensign Spring's mill created the thoroughfare leading from the west side of Centre Street, called Mill Lane, since, Mill Street. Cotton Street, south of the burying-ground, named in honor of the third pastor of Newton, was the principal ave- nue through which the people in the east part of the town came to public worship and to the town- meetings. The Upper and Lower Falls on Charles River created an occasion for roads by which these villages could be reached from other parts of the town. Boylston Street, formerly the Worcester Turnpike, was constructed in 1809, and intersected the town from the border of Brookline to Charles River. Beacon Street was made in 1847-48.
The second minister of the town was Nehemiah Hobart, a man of learning, and at one time vice- president of Harvard University. He was ordained December 23, 1674. During his ministry the meeting-honse was enlarged and improved. The custom of " dignifying the pews" was in vogue in the church in Newton for many years, but at last, happily, it fell into disuse. A committee was ap- pointed at stated periods to assign to the families
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HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY.
and individuals their places in the house of God in reference to their dignity, rank, standing, or merit, but at the same time with the charge that they " were not to degrade any." The pews were built around the house, adjacent to the walls, and some- times one or two ranges were permitted in the vacant space, nearest the entrance doors. The body of the house, or " vacant space," was occu- pied mainly by long seats, the older persons being nearest the pulpit ; the galleries were devoted on one side of the house to the boys, on the other to the girls. Permission was given to a few persons of note to build pews in "the vacant space " at their own cost; but this privilege was held to be very precious, and sometimes, permission, being asked, was refused, in spite of the wealth and standing of the petitioner. The deacons' seat was raised above the floor in front of the pulpit, and on the railing in front of it stood the hour-glass, which one of the deacons turned at the beginning of the sermon ; and if it was not necessary to turn it again before the close, the minister was thought to be deficient in duty to his congregation.
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