History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 29

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton), ed
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & co
Number of Pages: 1034

USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I > Part 29

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The list of the " Persons, adults, who owned the Cov- enant and were baptized " extends to 1782, and is quite largely made up of negro servants. The use of the Half-way Covenant gradually became less common, until it finally ceased. A recent writer remarks :

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"The Half-way Covenant, the concession of the church, in order to a more pliable connection with the State, was still in force after the State had been practically divorced from the Church-a continual source of weakness and depression. It had been, indeed, one object of the Half-way Covenant to over- come the Anabaptist principle by attaching increased importance to baptism." In his time, Jonathan Ed- wards took strong ground against it. "Most of the Puritan churches accepted his principles, banished the Half-way Covenant, and took on the form which they still retain." During Mitchel's ministry there was excitement in Cambridge from a very different source. In 1656 " an accursed and pernicious sect of heretics, lately risen up in the world, who are com- monly called Quakers," made their appearance in Boston. The severe measures which were taken to suppress them did not accomplish their purpose. There was not much trouble in Cambridge, but enough to disturb the little scholastic community. " Elizabeth Horton went crying through the streets that the Lord was coming with fire and sword to plead with them." She was " laid hold of by a blood- thirsty crew, and early in the morning had before Thomas Danfort and Daniel Goggings (two wicked and bloody magistrates), who committed her, and whose jayler thrust her into a noisome, stinking dun- geon, where there was nothing to lie down or sit on, and kept her there two days and two nights, without helping her to bread or water; and because one Be- nanuel Bower (a tender Friend) brought her a little milk in this her great distress, wherein she was like to have perished, they cast him into prison for enter- taining a stranger, and fined him five pounds. They ordered her to be sent out of their coasts towards Rhode Island, and to be whipped at three towns, ten stripes at each, by the way."

She came back to Cambridge, was again put in prison, and whipped three times, as before. Thus she passes out of this history. But Benanuel Bowers remains. His wife was Elizabeth Dunster, whom President Dunster, in his will, calls "my Consin Bowers," with a legacy of five shillings apiece to her and her children. The Bowers family held all those of the Cambridge congregation who are known to have openly avowed the sentiments of their distin- guished kinsman. In 1656 Mr. Bowers was arraigned before the County Court " for absenting himself from the ordinance of baptism, and was only admonished."

It appears to have been in 1662 that the first Qua- ker missionaries came to Cambridge. Benanuel Bow- ers was then a Quaker, and the law was enforced against him by Danforth and Gookin. His wife and daughter suffered with him in the same faith. At the County Court in 1663 he was convicted of absenting himself from church for about a quarter of a year and of entertaining Quakers in his family. He was fined twenty shillings for his absence from church, and four pounds for his hospitality, with three shillings by way

of costs. Year after year he was fined for the absence of himself and wife from church. In 1666 he was fined for coming into the meeting-house with his hat on; in 1673 for "slandering and reviling the court, and for servile labor upon the Lord's Day ; " in 1676, for " profane and wicked cursing." After a time he refused to pay fines, aud passed more than a year in prison.

From time to time he petitioned for release. He claimed that he had attended worship according to his own faith and conscience. He complained of hard usage. He appealed to those who knew him to bear witness to his character. "I am about sixty years of age, thirty of which I have dwelt within about a mile of Cambridge town. What my life and conversation hath been amongst them, and what I have suffered these fifteen years for not going to the public meeting, is well known to many of my neigh- bors." In 1677 the court ordered that the marshal- general should levy upon the estate of Bowers the fines which had been imposed on him, and that there- upon he should be set at liberty.

But his troubles were not ended by his release. While in prison he vented his rage at his treatment in "a paper of scurrilous verses, wherein the honored Mr. Danforth and others were defamed." He sent the verses by his wife to the house of Mr. Danforth, who laid the matter before the Court. The magis- trates sentenced Bowers to be severely whipped with twenty stripes or to pay a fine of five pounds.

Mr. Bowers went to church on one occasion, at least, in 1677, when, after the services were closed, he stood on a bench and began to speak to the people. Mr. Oakes, who was then the minister, tried to stop him, but did not succeed. He gave him leave to reply to anything which had been said if he would do it on a week-day. Major Gookin commanded the constable to carry him out of the meeting-house, but he con- tinued to bring his charges against Magistrate Dan- forth, and desired the church to take notice thereof. In December Bowers and his wife were convicted of slandering the magistrate, and were sentenced to be openly whipped fifteen stripes apiece and to pay five pounds apiece in money, and to stand committed un- til the sentence was executed. This is substantially the history of the sad Quaker episode, so far as the records of Cambridge present it.

In 1681 and 1682 Mr. Bowers was fined for non-at- tendance on public worship, but of the latter years of his life very little is known.

The witnesses of his will were men of prominence -one of them the president of the college, and the others orthodox ministers. "This fact," remarks Dr. Paige, "justifies the presumption that he did not re- gard them as persecuters, and that they did not con- sider him to be an arch-heretic."

From this more public life of the Cambridge Church and minister we return to local affairs. What was Cambridge then? From an estimate made by the

HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

selectmen in 1647, two years before Shepard's death, it appears that there were here 135 ratable persons, ninety houses, about 2600 acres of land, 208 cows, 131 oxen, twenty horses, with other property of different kinds, making up a valuation of less than £2000. Johnson describes Cambridge in 1652, as "compact closely within itself, till of late ycars some few strag- gling homes have been built. It hath well-ordered streets and comely, completed with the fair building of Harvard College. The people are at this day in a thriving condition in outward things." He confirms what others have said, " that they have hitherto had the ministry of the word by more than ordinary in- strument." Attention was given to the cultivation of orchards. The orchard of the college is mentioned in the town record. The first license for an inn appears to have been given in 1652. In 1656 a committee was appointed to execute the order of the General Court for the improvement of all the families in spinning and clothing. In 1662 Mr. Mitchel and Captain Daniel Godkin were appointed "Licensers of the press.', About the time of Mr. Mitchel's nomination the second meeting-house was completed on Watch-house Hill. It must have been a conspicuous building as it stood " forty foot square" on that eminence. In 1652 the church agreed to divide the farm in Shaw- shine, and assigned 500 acres to Mr. Mitchel. In 1656 the people on the south side of the river requested that they might have "the ordinances of Christ amongst them, distinct from the town." The town did not think it expedient to grant this request and thus divide the church. A few years later the inhab- itants of Cambridge village had become so numerous that they formed a distinct congregation, and they were freed from contributing towards the ministry on the north side of the river, so long as an ahle ministry was sustained on the south side. In 1664 a new church was organized in Cambridge village. The village was incorporated as a distinct town in 1687-8, and in 1691 received the name of Newtown, which had long before been surrendered here. The protest which Cambridge made against the ambitious design of the village is almost ludicirous as we read it now. 'Now that Cambridge cannot spare what they desire we shall thus prove : " " That our town is thus situa- ted, narrow and long on each wing, Watertown and Charlestown nipping us up close on each side, there needs no proof. . Wemust be no town, nor have no Church of Christ nor ministry among us, in case we be clipped and mangled as the petitioners would have." "These long-breathed petitioners, finding that they had such good success that they could never cast their lines into the sea but something was catched, they resolved to bait their hook again." It is strange reading now, but it was very serious deal- ing then.

The records preserve various matters of detail in the parish life. In 1660 sundry young men received per- mission "to build a gallery on the south beam."

In 1666 Mr. Mitchel received a further grant of land. Among financial affairs is a vote in 1657 appointing a committee to make a levy of £240 for the mainten- ance this year, and for the payment of the dehts of our reverend pastor, Mr. Mitchel. In the accounts are these items :

£ s. d.

20,3, 67. to bro. Okes when he went to Rehoboth, in silver, 0 6 0

22, 4, 67. Payd to Daniell Cheavers for veall to Mr. Chauncy when he was sick . 0 50

3, 12, 67-8. Payd to Mrs. Dauforth in her husband's absence in silver, the sume of 25 shillings for wine,

sugar and spice at the buriall of Mrs. Chaun-

cy who deceased the 24 of the 11th 67 . . . . 150

27, 4, 68. Paid to John Sheapheard for a fower gallon bot-

tell to bring sack for the sacrament . . 0 3 9

The times which we have been reviewing were eventful days for England. Thomas Shepard died in the year in which Charles I. was beheaded, and the Commonwealth declared. It was a period which called for all the prudence of the Colonies. They ad- mired the valor of Cromwell, who was the champion of their own ideas. But they refrained from asking any favors from the Puritan Parliament. Massachu- setts kept silent when Cromwell was made a monarch. She was able to shelter three men who had signed the death-warrant of the King and fled from the ven- geance of Charles II. Of these, Whalley and Goffe came immediately to Cambridge, where they intended to reside. The Act of Indemnity from which they were excluded did not reach this country for several months. Meanwhile, and for months afterward, they were treated with consideration, though at last there was a division of feeling among the magistrates re- garding their duty. They were admitted into the best society here. They attended public worship and lec- tures, and took part in private devotional meetings, and were received to the Lord's Table. In showing them such favors, Mr. Mitchel was not aware of their exact relation to their government. He wrote after- wards in his own vindication : "Since I have had op- portunity, by reading and discourse, to look into that action for which these men suffer, I could never see that it was justifiable." It is plain that the people had enough to talk about during Mitchel's pastorate. There was the case of Dunster, and of the Quakers. The Half-way Covenant was a lasting theme for con- versation. Events of interest were taking place beyond the seas. The Waldenses were persecuted hy the Piedmontese ; Pascal died, and Jeremy Taylor ; the first idea of a steam-engine was suggested. "The Pilgrims' Progress" was published. Eliot's Bible was printed. London was smitten with the great plague and devastated by the great fire. The Triple Alli- ance was formed for the protection of the Nether- lands, and there were other events of importance, of which tidings came in the ships whose arrival was eagerly awaited.

But the end came to the busy and prosperous min- istry of the "matchless Mitchel." In the summer of 1668, " in an extreme hot season," after he had been

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preaching from the words, "I know that thou wilt bring me to death, and to the house appointed for all living," a putrid fever arrested him with a mortal malignity, and on the 9th of July "it pleased God to take him to rest and glory," in the forty-fourth year of his age. His departure cansed a great lamen- tation among his own people and throughout the churches. "The chief remaining pillar of our min- istry," as Hale ventured to designate him, had fallen. Only one sentence has come down to us from his last hours. To a young man standing by his bed he said : " My friend, as a dying man, I now charge you that you don't meet me out of Christ in the day of Christ." In the old church records is an entry of £8 138. 6d., paid in silver, by the appointment of the committee for the minister's house, unto the Deputy-Governor, Mr. Francis Willoughby, for the discharge of Mr. Mitchel's funeral. There is this entry, also: "To Goodman Orton, of Charlestown, for making a tapaul- ing to wrap Mr. Michell, and for doing something to his coffing that way, 48."' This was made necessary by the time and manner of his death, and his own condition ; for, as Cotton Mather narrates, "Mr. Mitchell had, from a principle of godliness, used himself to bodily exercise; nevertheless he found it would not wholly free him from an ill habit of body. Of extreme lean, he grew extreme fat." His body was wrapt in the cerecloth, tansy was strewed about it, and he was laid in "God's Acre," in all probability in the grave now covered by Henry Dun- ster's memorial slab.

The testimony to the life and work of Mr. Mitchel does him the highest honor. Mather pronounced it an eminent favor of God to the church to have "their great breach thus made up, with a man so much of the spirit and principles of their former pastor, and so excellently qualified with respect to the college." His labors were "wonderfully blessed; for very many of the scholars bred up in his time (as is observed) do savor of his spirit for grace and manner of preach- ing, which was most attractive." He " was a mighty man in prayer, and eminent at standing in the gap." Mather says: "Though he was all along in his preaching as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, yet, as he drew near to the close of his exercises, his comely fervency would rise to a mar- vellous measure of energy. He would speak with such a transcendent majesty and liveliness that the people would often shake under his dispensations as if they had heard the sound of the trumpets from the burning mountain, and yet they would mourn to think that they were going presently to be dismissed from such an heaven upon earth."

He took a prominent part in the affairs of the col- lege of which he was an alumni and a fellow. "The college was nearer unto his heart than it was to his house, though next adjoining it." He was a hard student himself, an "over-hard student," one says, and "he loved a scholar dearly ; but his heart was

fervently set upon having the land all over illumin- ated with the spirit of a learned education. To this end he became a father to the college which had been his mother." President Chauncy said: "I know no man in this world that I could envy so much as worthy Mr. Mitchel." Richard Baxter said of him, " that if there could be an ŒEcumenical Council of the whole Christian world, that man would be worthy to be the Moderator of it." Increase Mather exhorted the members of the college: "Say each of you, Mitchel shall be the example which I shall imitate." The Quinquennial Catalogue gives the names of many who must have come under his influence. Among the students of his time were William Stoughton, Leonard Hoar, Michael Wigglesworth, Thomas Shep- ard, Increase Mathers, Samuel Willard, Solomon Stoddard, Abraham Pierson, and others whose names came to be well known. While we read such tributes to the man, it is almost painful to look upon his estimate of himself. He wondered what the people of God saw in him, that they so much desired his labors among them. Kept from preaching by a hoarse cold, he makes this record : "My sin is legible in the chastisement: cold duties, cold prayers (my voice in prayer, i. e., my spirit of prayer, fear- fully gone), my coldness in my whole conversa- tion-chastisement with a cold; I fear that I have not improved my voice for God formerly as I might have done, and therefore he now takes it from me." He wrote long lamentations at the death of several lovely children in their infancy, and humbled himself with his bereavement. The churches sought his assistance in difficult matters and relied on his judgment; yet he felt his own unfitness for such ser- vice. "Sometimes I am ready to resolve to put forth myself no more in public work, but keep myself silent and unengaged, as I see others do." Iu view of death he "fell to admiring the manifold grace of God unto him, and exclaimed : 'Lord, thou callest me away to thee; I know not why, if I look to myself; but at thy bidding I come.'" When he was gone "it was feared there would be few more such ripe grapes to he seen growing in this unthankful wilderness." Mr. Sibley writes: "The universal sentiment and grief were expressed in several quaint epitaphs like the following :"

" An epitaph upon the deplored death of that super-eminent minister of the gospel, Mr. Jonathan Mitchell.

" Here lyes the darling of his time, Mitchell, expired in his prime ; Who four years short of forty-seven Was found full ripe and plucked for Heaven. Was full of prudent zeal and love, Faith, Patience, Wisdom from above ; New England's stay, next ages story, The Churches Gemme; the colledge glory- Angels may speak him ; Ah ! not I, (Whose worth 's above hyperbole) But for our loss, wer't in my power, I'd weep an everlasting shower."

J. S.

HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

" Epitaphium.

Here lies within this comprehensive span, The Churches, Courts and Countries Jonathan, lle that speaks Mitchell, gives the school the lie, Friendship in Him gained an ubiquity." Vivet post funera virtus.

F. D.

It was more than three years before the church had another pastor. In the interim the pulpit was occu- pied by President Chauncy and others. In 1669, De- cember 20, the town voted that " fifty pounds be paid to Mr. Chauncy and such as labor among us in preach- ing the word," and thirty pounds to " Mistris Mitchell." A year later forty-five pounds was voted to Mr. Chaun- cy and thirty to Mrs. Mitchell. The religious work of the church was carried on, although there was no pastor. In February, 1668-69, certain fitting men were appointed to catechize the youth of the town. The town was divided into districts for this purpose. In May, 1669, "The selectmen, taking into considera- tion, upon the complaint of some of the idleness and carelessness of sundry persons in the time of public worship, upon the Sabbath day, by keeping without the meeting-house, and there unprofitably spending their time, whereby God's name is dishonored,-they do order, for the time being, that the constable shall set a ward of one man during the time of public worship, one in the forenoon and another in the afternoon, to look unto such persons, that they do attend upon the public worship of God, that God's name and worship be not neglected nor profaned by the evil miscarriage of such persons." The town also improved the time and prepared for a new minister by building a par- sonage. The ministers had hitherto lived in their own house. In 1669, July 5, a committee was appointed "to take present care to purchase or build a conve- nient house for the entertainment of the minister that the Lord may please to send us to make up the breach that his afflicting providence hath made in this place; and that the charge thereof be levied on the inhabit- ants, as is usual in proportion in the maintenance of the ministry." In the following September the church voted to sell its farm at Billerica, and that the pro- ceeds be improved for the building of a house for the ministry. In the ancient church-book there is the record of a committee which was "chosen for that purpose, which tooke care for the same, and to that ende bought fower akers of land of widdow Beale to set the house upon, and in the yeare 1670 theare was a house earected upon the sayd land of 36 foote long and 30 foote broad; this house to remayne the church's and to be the dwelling place of such a min- ister and officer as the Lord shall be pleased to supply us withal, during the time hee shall supply the place amongst ns. The chargis laid out for the purchas of the land and building of the house and barne, in- closing the orchyard and other accommodations to it:

€ a. d.

'The purchas of the lund in cash

40 0 0

The building and finishing the house 263 5 6

The building the harno 42 0 0 The inclosing the orchyard and yards, and repayring the fencis, building an office-house, and planting an orchyard with trees, and seeling some part of the house, and laying a duble flooro on some part of it 27 1 10

The house was on the north side of Harvard Street, nearly opposite Chestnut, now (Plympton) Street, within the present college grounds, and on a glebe of four acres. We may follow the house-building a step further by copying another record.

" In the yeare 1676 the hall and hall-chamber were sealed, and another floore of bords was layed upon the chichin chamber. The particular chargis :

£ s. d.

20 busheles of lime and the feching it 1 1

800 of earth, 68 84, a bushel of hayer, 18 7

3 peckes of-it looks like-shreds, 18 64; lamphlack, 8d 2

3560 nails, 85, 101/6ª 0 8 1016

0 Tbe masons' worke 1 4

For brickes, and sand, and help to brick the kichen

4 6 412

We may copy two other records which belong to this period.

March 6, 1668-9. To Deacon Stone by a pair of shooes and a pound of sugar, because the deacon had

silver though they cost him 48 64, had hut 0 3 6

26, 4, 1670. Payd in silver, by the apoyntment of the Comittee for the mynister house unto the deputie gover- nor, Mr. Francis Willoughbly, by Deacon Stono and Thomas Chesholm, as appears by his dis- charg wch Deacn Stone hath for the discharg of Mr. Mitchell's funerall the sum of eight pounds, thirteen shillings, six pence. I say the sum of . 8 13 6

In 1668, the year in which Mr. Mitchel died, the church invited Mr. William Stoughton, or Stoutton, as the old record gives it, to become the pastor. He graduated in the class of 1650, and afterwards studied divinity and preached in England with acceptance. He returned to New England in 1662, and was re- peatedly asked to become the minister of Dorchester, his birth-place. Though he was "an able preacher and very pious," he was not "persuadable to take any office charge in any church." He was therefore " chosen into the magistracy, and he rendered much important service to the colony. His benefactions to the college exceeded those of any other person dur- ing the century." Not long before his death he erected a College Hall which took his name. This Hall was taken down in 1780, and in 1804-5 another Stoughton Hall was erected on a site nearer the north side of the yard. Failing to secure Mr. Stoughton as the minister, the church turned its eyes to one who had been favorably known as a student. The old record must tell the story. "After sume time of seek- ing God by prayer the Lord was pleased to guide the church to make theare application to Mr. Urian Oakes in Old England, which to further the same theare was a letter sent from the church with a mes- senger namely, Mr. William Manning with a letter ; alsoe sent by seaverall magistrates and ministers to in- vite him to come over and be au officer amongst us, which he after counsell and advice did except but

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devine providence did hinder him for that yeare by reason of a sickness the Lord was pleased to visit his wife withall and afterward tooke her away by death which hindered him for that yeare. The church the next yeare renewed againe theare call to him by another letter, but then he was hindered by an ague that he was long visited withall in the yeare 1670. Thease providences interfering, the church was in doupt wheather to waight any longer, but after sume debate the church was willing to waight till the spring in the yeare 1671, and then had an answer early in the yeare of his purpose to come over that summer, which was accomplished by the good provi- dence of God, hee arriving in New England July the 3, 1671, and finding good acceptance both by the church and towne and in the country and joined a member with our church and was ordained pastur of our church November the eight 1671."

Urian Oakes was born in England about 1631, and was brought to New England in his childhood. He "was a lad of small, as he never was of great stat- ure." But he seems to have been an amiable boy, for observers "make this reflection, If good nature could ever carry one to heaven, this youth has enough to carry him thither." He was precocious, and pub- lished "a little parcel of astronomical calculations." He graduated in 1649, and continued to reside at the college and board in Commons till 1653. "He returned into his native country about the time of the Rump." After serving for a time as chaplain to a person of note he was settled in the ministry at Tichfield, in Hampshire, where he labored with great devotion. In 1662 he was silenced with other non- Conformists ; but after a time, "when the heat of the persecution was a little abated, he returned unto the exercise of his ministry." His friends here watched his course, and when the time came invited him to come back and be the minister of Cambridge. To this he consented, as we have seen, and as the " Magnolia " expresses it, "The good stork flew over the Atlantic Ocean to feed his dam." In the public records is an account of a meeting of the church and . town to express thanks to Mr. Oakes for leaving Eng- land and coming hither, and the continued desire that he would join in fellowship here, that he might be made the pastor, and to entreat him to remove himself and his family into the new minister's house. The deacons were authorized to provide for his ac- commodation, and it was voted "that half a year's payment forthwith be made by every one, according to their yearly payment to the ministry ; and the one- half of it to be paid in money, and the other in such pay as is suitable to the end intended." We have this record : " August the 9th 1671. Delivered to Wil- liam Manning sixty pounds in silver to pay Mr. Prout toward the transportation of Mr. Urian Oakes, his family and goods, and other disbursements and for John Taylor his passage, I say payed him the just sum of 604.0. 0. Let it be taken notice of that Mr.

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History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 29

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton), ed Publication date: 1890 Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & co Number of Pages: 1034

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton), ed
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & co
Number of Pages: 1034