USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : containing carefully prepared histories of every city and town in the county, Vol. II > Part 5
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Sandy Pond, a beautiful sheet of water, lies on the western side of the town, and a fine tract of arable land extends from the centre of Lincoln to the borders of Wayland, the quality of which was well known to the Indians, and they repeat- edly petitioned to have a town on the easterly shore of Sandy Pond, or the westerly side of Beaver Swamp. The southwestern border of the town is washed for more than a mile by the slug- gish waters of Concord River. Brooks which are tributaries to the Concord, Charles, and Shaw- shine rise and flow out, but not a tubful of water comes into the town from any source except the rains and dews of heaven. Two of these brooks acquire sufficient force and volume before leaving the town to furnish water-power for saw and grist mills, and a small mill for sawing marble taken from a quarry near by existed here many years ago ; but the business was not remunerative.
The inhabitants of Lincoln are occupied with
agricultural pursuits. The population, according to the state census of 1875, was eight hundred and thirty-four.
The town of Lincoln was incorporated April 19, 1754, and went into the contest for freedom and independence on the day it became of age. Although the history of a town may properly be said to commence with the date of its incorpora- tion, it seems as properly to include some account of its parentage. Portions of the present town of Lincoln were, at different periods of colonial history, parts of the towns of Watertown, Cambridge, Con- cord, Weston, and Lexington. The grant of the General Court of April, 1635, to Watertown of a tract of land extending eight miles from Fresh Pond west-northwest into the country, and the grant to Concord of September 3, of the same year, of " six myles square of land," overlapped each other about two miles, and included about two thirds of the present town of Lincoln. This gave rise to a controversy between Watertown and Con- cord, and on the Stli of June, 1638, the General Court ordered, " for the final end of difference be- tween Watertown and Concord, that Watertown eight miles shall extend upon the line between Watertown and Cambridge as far as Concord bounds give leave." This decision gave the prin- cipal part of the territory of Lincoln to Concord. Bond, in his history of Watertown, says that " as the land was first surveyed and settled by Concord people, they were allowed to retain it, notwith- standing the prior title of Watertown," but it is not probable there were any settlements here as early as 1638. It is not easy to determine when or by whom the first settlement was made or house built. Nathaniel Billings was probably the earli- est settler. Thomas Brooks moved from Water- town to Concord about 1638. His son Joshua probably learned his trade of tanner from Captain Hugh Mason of Watertown, whose daughter he married, and moved to the easterly part of Concord, between 1650 and 1660.
On the 7th of June, 1734, Joseph Brooks and
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LINCOLN.
others, inhabitants of the easterly part of Concord, the northerly part of Weston, and westerly part of Lexington, presented a petition to the General Court, setting forth their difficulties and inconven- iences by reason of their distances from their usual places of public worship in their respective towns, and praying to be erected into a separate township. This petition was summarily dismissed ; but, noth- ing daunted by their failure, the next year, July 2, 1735, John Flint, Simon Dakin, Josiah Parks, and other inhabitants of the easterly part of Concord, northerly part of Weston, and westerly part of Lexington, petitioned to be made a separate town- ship. On this petition the General Court issued the usual orders of notice to the towns of Concord, Weston, and Lexington, to appear on the second Wednesday of the next sitting of the court, and show cause why the prayer of the petition should not be granted. In October the petition was taken up and read again, with the answers of the towns of Concord, Weston, and Lexington; and the council voted that the prayer of the petition " be so far granted that Francis Foxcroft and Josiah Willard Esqrs., with such as the Hon. House may join, be a committee to repair to the place proposed to be made into a township, and carefully view and consider the situation thereof and the circumstances of the petitioners, and the towns named in the petition, giving seasonable notice to all parties of their coming; and make report to this Court what they judge proper to be done on this petition, the charge of the Committee to be borne as the court shall order."
To this vote of the council the house of repre- sentatives voted a non-concurrence; upon which, the council voted to adhere to their own vote.
The subject was taken up again on the 26th of November and 2d of December, 1735, with like results ; each branch voting a non-concurrence with the other. January 2, 1735-36, after a long debate, the house voted a reconsideration of their votes of non-concurrence, and on the 7th voted a concurrence in the vote of the council, and Captain Jeremiah Stevens, Captain Adam Cushing, and Ephraim Leonard, Esq. were joined to the committee of the council. On the 18th of March the committee were directed to report to the next May session. June 2, 1736, the com- mittee submitted the following report : -
" Pursuant to an order of the Great and Gen- eral Court, on the petition hereunto annexed, the Committee appointed to repair to the place men-
tioned in said petition, prayed to be a township, to view and consider the situation thereof, and the circumstances of the petitioners, and also of the towns mentioned in the petition, and hear all par- ties concerned, have carefully performed that ser- vice, and are of the opinion that the prayer of the petition be not granted, which is humbly - sub- mitted by, Fra® Foxcroft, pr. order."
The report was accepted in both branches, and the petition ordered to be dismissed, and it was further ordered that the charge of the view, amounting to £54 16s. 9d., be paid as follows : £18 to the committee of this court for their attendance and travel by the petitioners, -£18 8s. 4d. by the town of Concord, and the remain- der by the towns of Weston and Lexington in equal proportions.
No further action looking to the incorporation of the town took place for several years. Au- gust 18, 1744, Joshua Brooks and forty-eight others, inhabitants of the easterly part of Concord, northerly part of Weston, and westerly part of Lexington, petitioned to be made a separate pre- cinct. On this petition the usual orders of notice were issued, and after various delays a viewing committee was appointed. On the 18th of April, 1746, the committee reported that the prayer of the petition ought to be granted, - which report was accepted, and it was ordered that "the peti- tioners, together with the persons living within the bounds mentioned in the petition (except such persons and estates as are cxcepted by the report), be and are hereby erected into a distinct and sepa- rate precinct, and vested with all such powers and privileges as other precincts within this province have, or by law ought to enjoy - and that such of the aforesaid exempted persons as shall within one year signify to the Secretary under their hands their willingness to join with the petitioners be to- gether with their estates incorporated with them, to do and receive alike duty and privilege as the petitioners "
No act of incorporation other than this order was passed, but it was voted "that Benjamin Brown one of the principal inhabitants of the Parish this day set off from Concord, Lexington and Weston be and hereby is enabled to call the first precinct meeting in said parish to choose parish officers and to act and do all other things according to Law." This order or precept is still preserved by Deacon Brown's descendants. Under its authority the precinct met at the house of Mr.
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HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY.
Edward Flint, May 26, 1746, and chose the fol- lowing officers : Benjamin Brown, moderator; Ephraim Flint, precinct clerk ; Chambers Rus- sell, Esq., Benjamin Brown, Josiah Parks, John Headley, and John Hoar, precinct committee ; Samuel Dakin and Jonathan Wellington, collec- tors; Stephen Wesson, treasurer; Ebenezer Cut- ler, Daniel Adams, and Ephraim Flint, assessors.
The incorporation of the precinct prepared the way for the incorporation of the town. A com- mittee, consisting of Hon. Chambers Russell, Captain Samnel Bond, and Deacon Joshua Brooks, were chosen in March, 1754, to petition the Gen- eral Court for an act of incorporation. The rea- sons alleged in the petition were the inconvenience of being connected with so many towns, and the refusal or neglect of those towns to lay out roads for their convenience.
The petition encountered little opposition, and an act to incorporate the town of Lincoln passed both branches April 19, 1754, and received the assent of the governor on the same day. On the 26th of April the new town held its first meeting, and the following officers were chosen : Hon. Chambers Russell, moderator ; Ephraim Flint, town-clerk and treasurer ; Ephraim Flint, Ephraim Hartwell, Ebenezer Cutler, Samuel Farrar, and John Hoar, selectmen ; John Gearfield and Joshua Brooks, Jr., constables ; Nathaniel Whittemore and Ben- jamin Munroe, clerks of market.
The ostensible object of those who petitioned for the incorporation of the town and the precinct was to enjoy the preaching of the gospel. They urged, in their petitions to the General Court, and before its committees, the difficulties and incon- veniences they labored under by reason of the dis- tances of their usual places of worship. These difficulties and inconveniences will be better un- derstood when it is remembered that they had no carriages in those days, that the Concord and Cam- bridge turnpike was not built till fifty years after the incorporation of the town, and that the only avenues from the central parts of Lincoln to Con- cord were the roads from Watertown by Walden Pond, and "the Bay-road " from Lexington to Concord. The road from Lieutenant Samuel Dakin's to the house of Dr. John Prescott in Con- cord was laid out shortly before the incorporation of the town, and the road from Lieutenant Dakin's to the Watertown road soon after. Public worship had been held in private houses, and a house of worship projected, before the incorporation of the
precinct. This house, built and partly finished, was formally presented to the precinct, June 22, 1747, by Benjamin Brown, Edward Flint, Judah Clark, Joseph Brooks, Joshua Brooks, Samuel Bond, Jonathan Gove, Benjamin Munroe, John Headley, Samuel Dakin, Ebenezer Cutler, Jere- miah Clark, Amos Merriam, John Gove, Jonathan Wellington, Ephraim Flint, Thomas Wheeler, Joseph Pierce, Nathan Brown, Jonas Pierce, Timo- thy Wesson, and George Pierce, the builders. It occupied the site of the present meeting-house of the first parish, while further, and near the summit of the hill, three years afterwards, a house was built for Rev. Mr. Lawrence. Beautiful, indeed, for situation was the house of the Lord, and the resi- dence of its first minister "on the sides of the North."
In 1755 the town voted to build a tower, whereon to hang a bell, and a spire to the meeting- house. They were built in the same year, and a bell, the gift of Mr. Joseph Brooks, was hung in the belfry. This Joseph Brooks died September 17, 1759, aged seventy-eight years. The inscrip- tion on his gravestone states that "he was a liberal benefactor to the town of Lincoln, manifested by his generous donations." In his will he gave £ 20 to the church of Christ in Lincoln, to purchase vessels for the communion service, and £10 to Rev. Mr. Lawrence, and, after giving legacies to various relatives, gave the residue of his estate to the town for a school-fund. The amount received was £368.1
Measures were also taken for the formation of a church, and on the 18th of August, 1747,. twenty-five male members of the churches in Con- cord, Lexington, and Weston met together, and agreed to embody themselves into a distinct church. The organization took place two days after, the Rev. John Hancock of Lexington, Wil- liam Williams of Weston, Israel Loring of Sud- bury, and Warham Williams of Waltham par- ticipating in the public services of the occasion. A church covenant was adopted and signed by the male members of the church the same day, but the names of the female members nowhere appear.
Six candidates for the ministry preached here in
1 The statements in Shattuck's and Bond's histories that the Joseph Brooks who gave the hell and school fund to the town married Rebecca Blodget and had eight children are erroneous. This Joseph Brooks died before there was aoy precinet, town, church, or meeting-house here. The Joseph Brooks who gave the bell and school fund to the town married Jane Jennison, and left no child or widow.
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1747 and 1748, without receiving an invitation to settle. April 11, 1748, it was " Voted, That Mr. William Lawrence is the man desired to preach four Sabbaths and the Fast, on probation for set- tlement in the ministry." On the 18th of May following the church united with the precinct in extending a call to Mr. Lawrence. The call was accompanied by an offer of £800, and an annual salary of £400, according to the Old Tenor bills. Subsequently a committee was appointed to treat with Mr. Lawrence in reference to his settle- ment, and it was agreed that his salary should be regulated upon these prices of the following arti- cles : 1 Indian corn, 15s. per bushel, Old Tenor ; Rye, 20s. per bushel ; pork, 1s. 8d. and beef 1s. per pound, to be stated in the months of Novem- ber and December. It was also agreed to give ten cords of wood annually, in addition to £400.
The ordination of Mr. Lawrence took place December 7, 1748, the ordaining council being composed of the elders and messengers of the churches in Lexington, Weston, two churches in Cambridge, First Church in Groton, and the churches in Waltham and Littleton. Rev. Mr. Hancock was moderator, who also prayed and gave the charge. Rev. Caleb Trowbridge preached the sermon, and Rev. Warham Williams gave the right hand of fellowship. Rev. Nathaniel Apple- ton and Rev. Daniel Rogers offered prayers.
Rev. William Lawrence, son of Colonel William and Susanna (Prescott) Lawrence was born in Groton, May 7, 1723, and graduated at Harvard College in 1743. He married February 1, 1750 - 51, Love, daughter of John and Love (Minott) Adams. Mr. Lawrence had a family of three sons and six daughters who survived him. Little is known respecting his character, peculiarities, and beliefs. By the inscription on his monument we are told that " he was a gentleman of good abili- ties and a firm supporter of the order of the churches," and one of his successors writes of him, " had we no other sources of judgment than the records of his church and the character of the men raised up under his ministry, we should be justified in believing that he was an able, judicious,
1
and devoted minister of the gospel." The only stigma that attaches to his memory is a suspicion of toryism. His people assembled at the meeting- house one Sabbath morning in the fall of 1774, and would not permit him to enter the pulpit. His eldest daughter, Love, was married about that time to Dr. Joseph Adams of Townsend, an uncompro- mising loyalist, and probably some scandal con- nected with the marriage was the cause of this ebullition of popular feeling; but whatever the trouble was, it vanished during the week and left no explanation to posterity. Mr. Lawrence died April 11, 1780. Mrs. Lawrence died January 3, 1820, having survived her husband nearly forty years.
After the death of Mr. Lawrence, Messrs. Ebene- zer Hubbard, Jr., William Bentley, and Asa Piper were employed to preach, but it does not appear that any of them made a favorable impression on their hearers. Mr. Charles Stearns was first em- ployed to preach in October, 1780, and on the 15th of January following the church voted unani- mously to invite him to be their pastor. In this vote the town, on the 5th of February, concurred and voted to give him £220 " hard money, or its equivalent," (to which £70 was subsequently added) as a settlement, and £80 and fifteen cords of wood as an annual salary. His ordination took place November 7, 1781, the churches in Waltham, Weston, Lexington, Concord, Reading, Lunenburg, Leominster, Sudbury, East Sudbury, and Stow being represented in the ordaining council. Rev. Mr. Adams of Lunenburg preached the sermon, which was printed.
Dr. Stearns' ministry, like that of his prede- cessor, was remarkably free from distracting influ- ences ; their united ministries extended over a period of more than seventy-five years, and no eccle- siastical council was called to settle controversies or harmonize differences. No root of bitterness ever sprang up between minister and people, and no trace of any serious disagreement can be found on church or town records. The secret of the uni- form peace and prosperity of the church is doubt- less to be found in the fact that the ministers were willing to do the work of the Master, and let sectarian strife alone. During the latter part of Dr. Stearns' ministry, the Congregational churches of New England were disturbed and divided upon the subject of exchanges between ministers hold- ing different views upon matters of faith alone, but Dr. Stearns steadily refused to take any part in the controversy.
1 The practice of " stating a salary " was common in New Eng- land towns, and arose from the depreciation of paper currency issned by the colonial legislatures, and by the Continental Con- gress. The relative value of the paper currency to silver in 1748 was about £6 paper currency to £1 silver, and in 1781 £ 75 paper to £ 1 silver. In 1791 the town sold the old paper currency in the treasury, amounting to £ 2374 17 s. 4d., for £ 15 16 s. 6 d. "being the whole value thereof "
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HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY.
"To sect or party his large soul Disdained to be confined."
Dr. Sprague, in his Annals of the American Pul- pit, has classed Dr. Stearns with the Unitarian di- vines, and doubtless he is rightly so classed. In his earlier utterances may be found statements of doctrines in accordance with the theology of the times, which in the wisdom of maturer years he would probably have clothed in different language ; but if he was ever a Calvinist in any sense of the term, neither his sons whom he fitted for college and pre- pared for the ministry, nor his daughters who were intelligent beyond most women, ever suspected it. " His glory," said Dr. Lowell, " was to be a Congre- gational minister, and such he was." Dr. Stearns' labors and usefulness ended only with his life. The first Sabbath in July, 1826, found him at the post of duty, but he was stricken with a disease which terminated his life on the 26th of that month. The town buried him beside his children who had gone before, and placed a marble monument over his grave, on which the distinguishing traits of his character were drawn with force and accuracy by his life-long friend, Dr. Ripley, of Concord. He married Susanna, daughter of Jonathan and Rachel (Green) Cowdrey, of Reading, and had six sons and five daughters. Four sons and two daughters survived him. His widow died July 24, 1832.
Dr. Stearns was succeeded in the ministry by Rev. Elijah Demond, who was installed November 7, 1827, and dismissed at his own request October 26, 1832. During his pastorate, the organization of the First Parish took place, and the management of ecclesiastical affairs by the town ceased. The second Congregational Society was organized and a meeting-house built by the Unitarians in 1842, and an Episcopal church in 1872.
The old meeting-house was nearly square and was entered by three porches, the front porch being on the southerly side. The tower in which the bell was hung and on which the spire stood were at the westerly end, as the gables ran, and another porch at the easterly end, a part of which was occupied by the stocks, a terror to naughty boys, though it does not appear that they were ever used. The stocks were made of heavy oaken planks, strong enough to hold a brace of elephants.
Within the house "wall pews" were built around the sides of the house at an early day, space for them being allotted, not to those who would pay most for it, but to those who paid the highest taxes, - Judge Russell being allowed to choose a
place for his pew .in the meeting-house where he pleased, and to build it when he pleased. He built his pew on the right of the front entrance, nearest the door. The opposite pew was reserved for the minister's family. The body of the house was occupied by long seats ; portions of these were re- moved at different times to make room for pews, and a portion of them was assigned in 1771 to the singers ; it was fifty years after the building of the meeting-house before the choir could be induced to sit in the gallery. Galleries were constructed around three sides of the building, while the pulpit, with its high sounding-board overhead and dea- con's seat in front, was on the northerly side of the house. No sharp-witted mortal ever guessed the use of the sounding-board until he was told of it, and one thoughtful urchin, at least, pondered less upon the final destiny of the race than the fate of the preacher, should the iron rods, which held the architectural abomination in its place, let go their hold.
On Sunday, as a rule, the whole population went to meeting. Of the six hundred and ninety persons who composed the population of the town at its incorporation, probably five hundred usually gath- ered together for worship on the Sabbath. The old and the young, the rich and the poor, the bond and the free, the wise and the simple, the halt and the lame, the blind and the palsied, were there. The young men and maidens were intent to hear the prelude to the services, - not in those days a peal from the organ, but a cry from the town-clerk, - and as soon as the young people had time to resume their Sunday faces, the minister arose, and announced that the worship of God would begin by singing one of the Psalms of David, which he read in the old version of Sternhold and Hopkins.1 When the reading was finished the chorister " set " the tune, and a venerable deacon arose in front of the pulpit and read the first line of the psalm, which the choir immediately sung ; then another line was read and sung alternately till the psalm was finished. Then came the prayer, the "long prayer," prefaced al- ways by the reading of the notes, when the whole congregation stood up and bowed themselves. The seats being destitute of cushions and hung on hinges, when the people stood up they turned up their seats also, either to have better standing-room, or to hear them fall down when the prayer was
1 Dr. Ripley, in his half-century discourse, November 16, 1828, says of this version : "Many parts of it could scarcely now be read with sobriety in the assembly."
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over, with a noise resembling the discharge of mus- ketry. Then another psalm was read, "deaconed," and sung. After it came the sermon. The regular orthodox length of a sermon was an hour, but that limit was often passed before the venerable preacher's " finally " was reached.
Here we note some of the changes of the years. In 1763 the reading of the Scriptures was first in- troduced as a part of the exercises of public wor- ship. In 1768 a short prayer was made before this reading. In 1767 "Dr. Brady's and Mr. Tate's version of the Psalms of David, with some hymns of Dr Watts', which are now bound up and published with this version," were substituted for the version of Sternhold and Hopkins. In 1795, at the request of some of the brethren who were members of the musical society, a bass-viol was allowed to be used on trial to assist the singers in divine service. After two more seasons of trial it was allowed to be used until further order.
At the time of the incorporation of the town there were within its limits three school-houses. One stood near Mr. Snelling's place, on the south road, near the railroad crossing, another on the Common near the old chestnut-tree. Shortly after the incorporation of the town new school-houses were built in the north and east parts of the town, principally by the subscriptions of individuals re- siding in those quarters. These were long, low buildings, with a door at one end and a chimney and fireplace at the other; two or three rows of benches with forms extended along the sides of the rooms. Seats with backs and desks with re- ceptacles for books were not found in any of the school-houses till within the last seventy years.
The possession of so many school-houses was found objectionable, and many attempts were made between 1760 and 1770 to agree upon a less num- ber. In 1762 a committee, composed of gentle- men from other towns, was invited to come here and decide upon the location of the schools. This committee, consisting of Messrs. Jonas Stone of Lexington, Thomas Barrett of Concord, and Brad- dyl Smith of Weston, visited the different parts of the town, heard the advocates of various projects, and made a report which was rejected ; but the plan they recommended was adopted a few years later. Since that time there has been no material change in the arrangement of the schools, except the establishment of the high school in 1852.
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